Colin Murphy: What one family’s troubling experience tells us about the cycle of prison and psychosis

The father of an inmate describes his fears about his son’s future when he walks free untreated and unrehabilitated

Almost 15pc of the inmates in Cloverhill are actively psychotic. Photo: Getty

For Diarmuid Peavoy, last week’s RTÉ Investigates docu­mentary, The Psychiatric Care Scandal, was both familiar and revelatory.

His son, Eoghan, who has schizophrenia and autism spectrum disorder, is currently sleeping on a mattress on the floor of an overcrowded cell in Cloverhill Prison. But Diarmuid hadn’t realised how many others were in a similar predicament.