Sir, - The letter from Joe Curran, Deputy General Secretary of the Association of Garda Sergeants and Inspectors, would suggest the author seems to be watching too many Hollywood movies. His concern that naming members of the ERU in the Abbeylara inquest would lead to danger from "the insane who may just feel like having a go at someone who is in the news" is so ludicrous as to be pitiful. On what evidence is this statement based? What information does he have to support this assertion? In fact, who are "the insane"?
The term "insane" is a legal definition, with no medical standing. However, it is usually used to refer to people with mental illness. Mr Curran might be interested in the real evidence: W.D. Boyd, director of a confidential inquiry into homicides and suicides by mentally ill people in Britain in 1995, said: "It is much safer to associate with someone who is psychiatrically ill than with a member of the general public."
Other studies draw similar conclusions. A recent British study found that the rate of violence among people with mental illness was decreasing, while it is common knowledge that it is increasing among the general population. The risk factors for violence are the same for everyone, and mental illness is not one of them.
In the current circumstances, I would suggest Mr Curran should consider his words when he perpetuates the notion of violence among people with mental illness. This myth has real, everyday consequences for people with mental illness - stigma, discrimination, a society and Government which doesn't care that psychiatric services in Ireland, and the needs of people with mental illness are ignored, underfunded and basically forgotten.
It is somewhat ironic that his comments come during a week when the Dail is debating the Mental Health Bill 1999, a piece of legislation which fails to acknowledge the reality that our psychiatric services are overly medicalised, over-hospitalised, under-funded, and provide no voice and no choices for people who are psychiatrically ill. - Yours, etc.,
Orla O'Neill, Director, Schizophrenia Ireland, Blessington Street, Dublin 7.