RTÉ Investigates rapid rise in waiting list for the Central Mental Hospital amid psychiatric care crisis in Ireland
RTÉ Investigates rapid rise in waiting list for the Central Mental Hospital
amid psychiatric care crisis in Ireland’s prisons
– Highest figures on record of people deemed sick enough to require treatment in the new Central Mental Hospital but instead kept in prisons
– Two-part RTÉ Investigates documentary series lays bare Ireland’s Psychiatric Care Scandal
– Families from Wicklow, Cork, Dublin, Offaly, Sligo and Tipperary tell their heartbreaking stories
Watch this Monday & Tuesday at 9.35pm on RTÉ One & RTÉ Player
The waiting list for the new Central Mental Hospital hit a record level in recent weeks as the crisis in the care for psychiatric patients in the country’s prisons deepens, a new RTÉ investigation has detailed.
The number of acutely mentally ill and actively psychotic people held in prison now far exceeds the number of available medical cells in these facilities, figures released to RTÉ Investigates have revealed.
More than 340 psychiatric patients are currently being held across the prison system. Twenty years ago the State unveiled big new plans for psychiatric care in Ireland. Many old wards were shut, with a plan to open specialist regional services instead. A new RTÉ Investigates documentary series details how without sufficient acute beds – patients with mental illness are being sent to prison.
In the last quarter of 2025, the number of people in prison waiting for admission to the Central Mental Hospital – which opened in late 2022 at a cost of almost a quarter of a billion euro – was at its highest level since before the closure of the old hospital in Dundrum in 2022. 38 people deemed sick enough to require treatment in the new Central Mental Hospital Portrane are instead being kept in prisons around the country on a lengthy waiting list.
Families of those forced to rely on prisons for psychiatric care have come forward to speak out against the conditions they are kept in, in a special two-part TV series RTÉ Investigates: The Psychiatric Care Scandal, beginning tonight (Monday) on RTÉ One and RTÉ Player.
Among those are the families of several psychiatric patients who died in Cloverhill prison over a five-year period and who are demanding answers regarding the circumstances of their care and their deaths.
His daughter Courtney told RTÉ Investigates she wants to know what happened: “It’s a very big thing to be fighting at 23 years of age… So it’s a young woman fighting against all these big (institutions) – the prison services, the HSE, the gardaí . . . and they’ll kind of just look at me as if you’re wasting your time. “
“We’ve suffered long enough, it’s been five years, it’s been long enough not to know what’s happened.”
RTÉ Investigates has found the options available to the already overwhelmed prison system, which has been linked to “life threatening conditions”, has deteriorated rapidly in recent weeks.
This followed a Constitutional challenge, and a Judicial Review just before Christmas of the practice of Therapeutic Bail and prompted the suspension of the procedure altogether. Therapeutic Bail had become the primary workaround to allow prisoners remanded for minor crimes while suffering from major mental illness to be diverted to an approved hospital for treatment.
In the six weeks since the hearing the waiting list for the country’s only designated secure hospital has risen to a record high.
Figures released to RTÉ Investigates has shown the rate of prisoners with acute mental illness in custody has increased dramatically in recent years. In the country’s dedicated remand centre, Cloverhill Prison, there is a medical landing with capacity for 27 people but in recent months there have been in excess of 55 actively psychotic people in held custody simultaneously.
This is ten times higher than it was ten years ago and this has tripled in last four years alone.
Tonight’s RTÉ One documentary will outline the detention conditions for people who have been charged with relatively minor crimes but are held in prison for mental health reasons.
The in-reach psychiatric team in Cloverhill Prison is led by Professor Conor O’Neill who told RTÉ Investigates:
“Some of the most severe mental illnesses are conditions like schizophrenia and related conditions like disaffected disorder and bipolar disorder. These are some of the worst mental health conditions you can have where people can hear and see things that aren’t real. It’s usually voices saying abusive or threatening things. Some of these people are very severely mentally ill.
Some people have brain injuries and dementias and are unable to look after themselves. These are people that should be in hospital, not in prison,” he said.
The HSE said its remains committed to ensuring that every person receives the right care in the right place at the right time. However, it acknowledged “the issues that have been raised in relation to HSE mental health services and regret any impact this may have had on people and their families”.
In Tuesday night’s programme, RTÉ Investigates questions whether the establishment of a brand new Central Mental Hospital in Portrane in north Dublin has delivered the change that was promised in the face of growing waiting lists, the increase in issues of a “high risk” and “critical risk” inside the centre, and ongoing concerns about the community services people are being discharged to.
Watch RTÉ Investigates: The Psychiatric Care Scandal this Monday, 9th February and Tuesday 10th February, 9.35pm on RTÉ One and RTÉ Player.
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Date: Monday 9 February 2026
For further information please contact:
Laura Fitzgerald, Communications Manager, RTÉ News & Current Affairs,, Laura.Fitzgerald@rte.ie Kate Smyth, Communications Lead, RTÉ, Kate.Smyth@rte.ie