Arrests under mental health Act jump 57%
THE number of people being detained under mental health legislation has soared by 57% in four years, the Irish Mail on Sunday has learned.
Figures confirmed by Justice Minister Helen McEntee in response to parliamentary questions from independent TD Carol Nolan reveal a total of 6,315 people were detained by gardaí under the Mental Health Act 2001 last year.
This was an increase from the 5,757 held under the Act in 2020 and a significant rise on the 4,816 recorded cases in 2019, and 4,002 cases in 2018.
Ms McEntee told Ms Nolan the figures are based on the latest available ‘data obtained from Pulse [the Garda system]’.
Ms Nolan expressed concern at the sharp rise in the number of people being detained under mental health legislation. And she warned that gardaí are not trained mental health professionals.
The independent TD said: ‘It is important to remember that
Garda members, while empathetic and dedicated, are not mental health professionals.
‘Their primary duty is to enforce the law and protect the communities they serve. Increasingly, however, they are finding themselves on the sharp end of having to intervene in incidences which may have only developed because of the lack of mental health services.
‘They may then find themselves in a situation where they are being heavily criticised for the management of complex mental health scenarios that are essentially problems not of their own making.’
The Laois-Offaly TD said this situation is ‘grossly unfair, not only to Garda members but, perhaps more importantly, to the many thousands of vulnerable mentally ill people who risk being criminalised because they did not receive the kind of preventative mental health support they needed’.
Since 2014, the HSE’s National Office for Suicide Prevention has been a stakeholder in coaching trainee gardaí. The gardaí undertake a two-day internationally recognised ASIST (Applied Suicide Intervention Skills Training) workshop, which is co-delivered by the HSE.
The ASIST workshop is described as a ‘suicide first-aid programme’, which equips trainees with skills required to discuss suicide with a person at risk and to make an intervention to reduce the immediate risk of suicide. In addition, Garda trainees participate in workshops during which they examine issues surrounding vulnerable and minority groups.
As part of the training, officers also study modules on managing prisoners with mental health issues, including self-harm and ‘excited delirium related to drug or alcohol abuse’.
However, ‘excited delirium’ has proved to be deeply controversial in the US, where it has been termed ‘junk science’ and has been regularly used as a convenient excuse to justify excessive police force.