The Central Mental Hospital is full with all 111 beds occupied and a further 38 people awaiting admission, a judge was told on Monday as she sought a place for a man who has been found unfit to plead because of a mental illness.
Hospital clinical director Dr Brenda Wright told Cork Circuit Criminal Court that the reason the hospital was unable to accept Patrick Sibanyoni (58) was due to the fact that all 100 male beds and 11 female beds at the hospital were full.
She told Judge Helen Boyle that the hospital also had a waiting list of 38 people waiting for admission, including eight in homicide cases who were deemed unfit to plead.
The psychiatrist had been requested to appear at the court after Boyle had made an order directing Sibanyoni be sent to the hospital last week. She did this after receiving a report that he was unfit to plead guilty in a criminal damage case.
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Sibanyoni, with an address at Dundanion Lodge, Blackrock, Cork, has been on remand at Cork Prison for the past eight months on 24 charges of causing criminal damage to property and cars in Mallow in May 2025, when it is alleged he caused the damage while stripped naked.
Boyle noted that Prof Gautam Gulati, consultant psychiatrist attending Cork Prison, had assessed Sibanyoni as suffering from a psychotic illness, most likely schizophrenia.
The judge had said at a previous sitting that she was “hamstrung” as she had medical evidence that the prison was an inappropriate place for Sibanyoni, as he was deteriorating there. And yet the hospital, where he should be, had not been able to accept him.
Wright said the hospital was not like the prisons, which can continue to accept prisoners as they cannot take someone if there is no bed available. “This morning, we do not have a bed available for Patrick Sibanyoni or anyone else on the waiting list,” she said.
Defence counsel Donal O’Sullivan asked if a bed became available, whether his client could be admitted. But Wright said that from what she knew of the case, there were other cases that would take precedence over Sibanyoni as he did not require to be kept in a secure facility.
O’Sullivan asked if it would be possible to release Sibanyoni on “therapeutic bail”, where the prison authorities would then release him and he would be brought by gardaí and admitted to an acute psychiatric centre under section 12 of the Mental Health Act 2001.
This part of the Act empowers the Garda to take a person into custody if there are reasonable grounds to believe that the individual has a mental disorder and poses a serious, immediate threat of harm to themselves or others.
Wright agreed with O’Sullivan that “therapeutic bail” had operated as “a release valve” when the hospital was at capacity in the past, but a judicial review taken in December by a prisoner at Cloverhill Prison had cast doubts about the mechanism.
She said that the prison authorities had consulted with the Chief State Solicitor about the use of this mechanism on foot of the judicial review and they had concerns about the actual transfer of a prisoner from their care and control under the mechanism.
Wright agreed with O’Sullivan that if Sibanyoni was in an acute psychiatric treatment centre, the treating team would be able to compel him to take the appropriate medication, unlike in prison, where the authorities have no power to compel a prisoner to take their medication.
She acknowledged Gulati had said that Sibanyoni could be treated in a non-secure acute psychiatric unit. And she agreed to see if there was room for Sibanyoni at Cork University Hospital and agreed to report back to the court on Tuesday on whether such a place was available.
The judge said: “I am not a psychiatrist, but I have a report that says he is in urgent need of medical attention. The reality is that if this man does not get treatment, he will never be fit to plead. I will remand him in custody until [Tuesday]. Hopefully, we will have an update then.”
