Madam, - Minister for Health Mary Harney, in her response to the Travers report, says it was "entirely wrong" that patients were illegally charged as "they were poor, they suffered from mental illness, they had intellectual disabilities, they were physically disabled". The Minister added: "As vulnerable people they were especially entitled to the protection of the law and to legal clarity about their situation."
The Department of Health recently signed up to a Cabinet proposal to relocate patients with the very same characteristics from the Central Mental Hospital, Dundrum to the new Mountjoy Prison Complex in North Dublin. Double standards? - Yours, etc.,
DAMIAN MOHAN, Chairman, Faculty of Forensic Psychiatry, Irish College of Psychiatrists, St Stephen's Green, Dublin 2.