Plea for admission to psychiatric facility, Coroner’s Court hears

The brother of a man found dead in his father’s garden has told his inquest that his brother had pleaded to be admitted to a psychiatric facility following a suicide attempt four days previously but was refused because of “cutbacks”.

The man (45) from Tallaght, Dublin was found dead in the front garden of his father’s home in Tallaght on June 25th last year.

Dublin Coroner's Court heard that a postmortem carried out by Deputy State Pathologist Dr Michael Curtis has been unable to establish the cause of death.

The man had a long history of mental illness. He was diagnosed with bipolar disorder and was being treated through Southwest HSE psychiatric services in Tallaght. He was attended regularly by a home care team.

His brother told the court the man had attempted to slit his wrists and had taken an overdose of tablets four days before he died. He had pleaded to be taken into a permanent facility.

“He said to them that he wanted to go into a permanent facility and they told him that he would not meet the criteria, more or less because of the cutbacks,” he said.

He was last visited by the home care team on the day before his death. Coroner Dr Brian Farrell said a report from the team said he was "reminded" to attend his GP in relation to his medications. The nurse also dropped into the GP surgery to ask for his medication to be reassessed because they were worried he was not taking it.

Consultant psychiatrist with the HSE psychiatric services in Tallaght, Dr Veronica O’Keane described the man as “chronically unhappy” with “superimposed” episodes of depression and said sought help “on a daily basis”. His case was discussed with the multi-disciplinary team regularly, she told the court. She said that suicidal ideation was not present in the days before his death.

The coroner adjourned the inquest to September 5th to hear directly from Dr Curtis.