§ MR. ARTHUR MOOREasked the Chief Secretary for Ireland, Whether his attention has been drawn to the following statement made by Dr. Garner in his annual report to the governors of the Clonmel District Lunatic Asylum:—
Patients are often conveyed to the asylum under the provisions of the Act 30 and 31 Vic., c. 118, guarded by an armed escort, generally handcuffed, and as often as not bound hand and foot. In one case the unhappy patient, in addition to his bonds, arrived enveloped in a bag reaching up to his throat. In this plight he had travelled on a car nearly 40 miles. In another—that of a puerperal maniac—the restraining cords cut deeply into her wrists and ankles; the chances of recovery are thus, I need not say, heavily weighted. More than two-thirds of the admissions are under the authority of this statute, so that the necessity of a more decorous mode of conveyance is all the more pressing;and, whether he will issue stringent orders to the police to avoid all unnecessary suffering to such patients?
§ SIR MICHAEL HICKS-BEACH, in reply, said, the police had already received orders to avoid all unnecessary suffering to patients conveyed to lunatic asylums in Ireland. He had made inquiries of the Inspector General of Constabulary, but did not find that any complaint had been made to him of the improper conduct of the police of Tipperary in this respect; nor did he find that any statement had been received by the Inspectors of Lunatic Asylums similar to that which, according to the hon. Member, was made by Dr. Garner in his annual report to the governors of the Clonmel District Lunatic Asylum. This statement was, however, of so serious a nature that he would cause inquiry to be made in regard to it, and he should be happy to communicate to the hon. Member the result of the investigation.