Promise to help man in need of therapy

A Government minister has promised to intervene in the case of a brain-injured man whom a judge refused to send to prison on eight occasions because he is "not a criminal, just sick".

The Minister of State for Health, Mr Tim O'Malley, said he would do "all he could" to assist in the case of the 29-year-old man, whose residential care and therapeutic treatment at a facility in Balgriffin, north Dublin, could not go ahead because funds had not been provided, even though a court was told that it would be available in April this year.

The issue was raised by the former Labour leader, Mr Ruairí Quinn, who said that the cost of the treatment was "the price tag of the Taoiseach's make-up each year".

In a highly-unusual move, the Minister of State declined to read out his prepared response because he did not have the full details when Mr Quinn raised the issue. He promised instead to set up a meeting between the deputy and officials in charge. "The case needs to be dealt with," Mr O'Malley said.

Mr Quinn said that Mr Peter Sheridan, of New Street, Dublin, "got himself into trouble through no fault of his own but because of an injury he sustained from a hiding he received on the so-called safe streets of this country".

Mr Sheridan was convicted in 1999 of robbery, but the judge had deferred imposing sentence until a suitable place could be found, and he had remanded him into the care of his family.

In June 2002, on the eighth hearing of the case, the court was told that a place would be available for treatment for Mr Sheridan in April 2003 at St Doolagh's Park, Malahide Road, Balgriffin, north Dublin.

The judge, whom Mr Quinn said could not bring himself to jail Mr Sheridan, imposed a three-year suspended sentence after hearing that a place had been found.

However, the operator of St Doolagh's received a letter in May this year stating that the South-Western Area Health Board had not been allocated any money to fund the placement.

Mr Quinn said that the man's elderly parents were now prisoners in their home because the "damage done to this man, who by their own admission is no angel, is such that he cannot be left alone".

Mr Quinn said that he was a "danger to himself and, frankly, a horror to live with".

The Dublin South-East TD added that the "cosmetic requirements of the Taoiseach are more important than providing the type of therapeutic treatment and residential care that Mr Sheridan desperately needs".