A.D. (After Documentary)
It has been over a month since RTE’s “The Psychiatric Care Scandal” documentary aired and we found out that prison, unlike other public services, has no waiting list. Has anything substantive changed in the interim? This is difficult to ascertain as there is a well-worn path for official Ireland in shaping their response to a scandal. First, there is initial outrage to mirror the public’s sentiment so they feel heard. Then, we bide time until the next news-worthy item emerges. The pressure to act evaporates. The system trundles on, largely unchanged. Honestly, it has been a favourable month to release bad news, as each day brings further unprecedented global horror and absurdity.
I am a penologist, a fancy way of saying I research prisons and punishment, but I have little interest in “crime” or the “law.” Both are too subjective. Crime is a socially constructed concept by those in society with the power to define what act of commission or omission is labelled a crime, thereby identifying who is criminal. Similarly, our criminal law is not evenly or fairly applied, prosecuting some and letting others bounce. A quick search of the sanctions administered for serial petty theft and dangerous driving is revealing in this regard. Jonathan Swift captured it best: “laws are like cobwebs, which may catch small flies, but let wasps and hornets break through.”
Where my interest lies, in relation to punishment, are State-inflicted harms, institutional neglect, and dehumanisation. And in that light, amidst all the unprecedented bad news, the story of Patrick Sibanyoni, a 58-year-old man originally from Guyana, did catch my attention in the past month.
Paradox of the Psychiatric Prisoner
In early February, Sibanyoni had been on remand in Cork Prison for almost nine months. Back in May 2025, he was arrested on 24 charges of causing criminal damage to cars and property. No other person was reported as being hurt. When assessed by the consultant psychiatrist in Cork Prison, Sibanyoni was diagnosed as suffering from a psychotic illness, most likely schizophrenia.
In a hearing at Cork Circuit Criminal Court on February 12th, Sibanyoni’s defence barrister told the court that he was unfit to plead and should be sent to the Central Mental Hospital (CMH). Judge Helen Boyle agreed Sibanyoni was unfit to plead but her direction for him to get a bed in the CMH had not happened, as the prosecution barrister informed the court that “the CMH was not in a position to give your order effect because of issues of capacity.”
Noting that she had a report outlining that Sibanyoni’s condition was “deteriorating in prison,” the judge began to go through her options as the CMH was not available and she was extremely hesitant to remand him back to jail. She considered bail without conditions, in the hope that a concerned citizen would see his condition and make a report so he would be taken to Cork University Hospital (CUH). But then deemed this course as “not optimal.”
Then we get to quite a paradoxical part of the hearing, as the judge considers bail with a condition that Sibanyoni go to the psychiatric unit in CUH upon release. The State, through the prosecuting barrister, objected as they considered his inability to plead as evidence that bail conditions would not be complied with. This is, in all likelihood, true. But what we also have is the State objecting to the release of a person from prison for healthcare which the State has failed to provide.
All parties—judge, defence, and State—agreed on the CMH placement for Sibanyoni, yet he continues to be confined to prison for a placement that does not exist. As the judge sent Sibanyoni back to prison, she wanted it on the court record that “it is clear Mr Sibanyoni is unwell, he is not disruptive here in court, but he is constantly talking quietly to himself – I am not a psychiatrist, but I have a report before me that says he is in urgent need of medical attention.”
Case Notes
In a subsequent hearing days later, as if the peculiarity could not increase, a few more revealing points emerged as the CMH clinical director appeared in court. Firstly, confirming a waiting list of 38 people, the clinical director said that if a bed became available, other cases would take precedence over Sibanyoni. This suggested that a prisoner with a psychiatric condition which did not meet the threshold for admission on a particular day, would remain indefinitely in prison until either the threshold for admission reduced or their mental health deteriorated enough.
Secondly, the possibility of “therapeutic bail” was discussed—where a person is released from prison and then brought by An Garda Síochana to an acute psychiatric unit under Section 12 of Mental Health Act 2001—but this was also not an option. The loss of this informal workaround, due to a pending judicial review, meant that the waiting list for the CMH rose by 20% in six weeks. Coupled with the judge’s previous attempts to allow bail, I find it equally fascinating and disturbing that the provision of psychiatric care to such high need cases would rely on such informal hacks. For institutions inundated with policies and procedures, this strikes as the deliberate creation of the option to shirk responsibility, knowing that the prison will act as a “safety net.”
Finally, in closing, Judge Helen Boyle made a revealing comment before again remanding Sibanyoni back to prison, “I have a report that says he is in urgent need of medical attention. The reality is that if this man does not get treatment, he will never be fit to plead.” In the beginning, I mentioned State-inflicted harms and dehumanisation within criminal justice structures, so this statement stopped me in my tracks for a number of reasons. Patrick Sibanyoni has not been found guilty of any crime. He is unable to stand trial as he has a serious psychiatric illness. He has also been in a severely overcrowded prison for almost nine months because of failed State provision of mental health treatment. Sibanyoni’s condition has definitively worsened in prison.
Though this ordeal, the State has inflicted immeasurable harm and suffering on Patrick Sibanyoni. There is the immediacy and acuity of the pain from being in prison with a psychiatric illness. There is the potential for greater unnecessary disability over his life as his condition worsened without treatment. In Cork Prison, he did not enter a period of stasis, as the gears of the State grinded ever slowly, but of rapid deterioration. And now, the judicial priority for treatment is that he can stand trial for property damage after his convalescence. Not so that what has been lost can be restored and healed, if even possible, but instrumentalised so the State’s desire for retribution can be satisfied.
What is to be gained by treating a seriously unwell man to convict him and send him back to prison, where so much harm was already caused. Maybe another story to add to the growing pile of horror and absurdity.
