Ireland has been criticised by Amnesty International in its annual report for what it describes as inadequate child protection standards and a shortfall in mental health services.
The organisation says the previous Government failed to implement a number of commitments it made in 2009, including a failure to draft legislation to give child protection guidelines a statutory basis.
The Amnesty International report also points out that a report by the Inspector of Prisons had criticised the practice of slopping out in Mountjoy, Cork and Limerick prisons as ‘inhumane and degrading’.
The human rights organisation also says last year's annual report by the Inspector of Mental Health Services had highlighted the conditions in a number of in-patient centres as ‘entirely unacceptable and inhumane’.
