The Minister for Justice, Michael McDowell, has vowed to dramatically improve facilities in padded cells in prisons, claiming the current situation was 'not acceptable'.
Mr McDowell said 851 prisoners were placed in solitary confinement in 2002, 970 in 2003, and 792 so far this year.
He said he visited prisons to see the facilities for himself when he took office, and was shocked to see a middle-aged man curled in a foetal position on the floor of a space the size of a phone booth.
Minister McDowell said six new cells had been built in Cloverhill Prison, and similar ones would now be rolled out around the country with larger windows, better lighting and communications, in-cell sanitation, and televisions where possible.
Fine Gael's Dan Neville said that while improvements were welcome, the use of isolation cells at all for the mentally ill was totally unacceptable.
