The scene was straight out of the dark past. On 11 March last at Belmullet district court, Judge Mary Devins sentenced Maura Harrington to 28 days imprisonment for assaulting Garda Eamon Berry.

Harrington, a retired schoolteacher, is a prominent member of the Shell To Sea campaign. In the course of a protest in June 2007, the diminutive woman slapped the garda across the face.

There could be little argument with the sentence. Harrington knew what she was doing and showed no remorse. She is an inveterate publicity seeker, somebody who revels in the limelight of the protests against Shell's plans for the Corrib gas field.

In addition to the sentence, Judge Devins recommended that Harrington be psychiatrically assessed to address her "bizarre" actions.

There doesn't appear to be any evidence of a mental-health deficiency on Harrington's part. She is a crank, but so what? She loves publicity, but that affliction can be seen right across society. She slapped a garda, which is a crime, but must be seen in context of her apparent passion for her cause.

She has received an appropriate sentence. Why attempt to humiliate her or stain her with the suggestion that she was not fully aware of her actions?

There was a time when figures of authority used deficient mental health as a cover for locking up or silencing somebody regarded as a pain in the butt. We were supposed to have moved on from then.

Citizens who fail to conform are not above the law but neither are they beneath the law. Mental health isn't something to be bandied about by those in authority as a weapon or threat.

Diverting precious resources to assess somebody like Harrington for apparently no good reason is offensive, as it cheapens the plight of those who are genuinely in need of urgent treatment.

The flip side of the issue of mental health in the criminal justice system is also straight out of the past. Those who do suffer from severe illness are treated little different from offenders who are responsible for their actions.

On 7 March, Eugene O'Neill, a former CEO of Ryanair, was sentenced to two years imprisonment for sexually assaulting a woman in November 2006. O'Neill (52) was formerly a brilliant businessman, but he began suffering from psychosis more than a decade ago.

For two days prior to the offence, he hadn't taken his prescribed medicine. The woman suffered an ordeal, which has left her frightened to be alone, and wary of middle-aged men.

She accepted that he hadn't taken his medicine and didn't want him jailed. Irrespective of what the victim said, the court was obliged to reflect the seriousness of the offence. So, O'Neill was imprisoned. It's difficult to see the point in imprisoning a man who primarily requires urgent medical attention. If anything, it reinforces a notion that the prisons are merely a dustbin for society's ills rather than penal institutions designed to punish and rehabilitate.

O'Neill won't be alone in prison as a mentally unwell person. The rate of mental illness in the Irish prison population is regarded as being high for an alleged developed western state.

In a study published in 2006, it was found that 37% of female prisoners and 17% of males suffer from a major depressive disorder. One-quarter of male prisoners and 40% of females inmates have deliberately harmed themselves, according to the study conducted by Harry Kennedy, clinical director of the Central Mental Hospital.

Many, if not most, of these people shouldn't be in prison, but the system has nowhere else to put them. For instance, there is no provision in Irish law for judges to make hospital orders, sending an offender for treatment in a secure unit rather than imprisonment.

Instead, many of those afflicted are subjected to a padded cell, or an isolation unit, with all the attendant problems in areas such as sanitation. Prisoners suffering a physical ailment are quite properly brought to hospital. Some of those with mental-health problems are left to wallow in their own waste in a padded cell. This is Ireland in the 21st century.

Last week, new figures were released about overcrowding in Irish prisons. In Mountjoy, 633 male prisoners are being housed in accommodation designed for 540. Within an overcrowded Victorian slum, housing some of the most dangerous individuals in the state, there is a cohort of mentally unwell individuals, who should be in hospital. The potential for violence and tragedy is obvious.

This is not an issue that gets much airing in political or media forums. The individuals concerned have been convicted in criminal courts. In the prevailing environment, where retribution is the dominant response to crime in any form, there is little sympathy or understanding for those who have fallen into crime primarily because of heath issues.

Little was done to tackle the problem when the country was awash with money. Even less can be expected now that the cupboard is bare. As has been pointed out by many professionals, mental health is the Cinderella of the heath service. And, it could be added, the plight of the mentally unwell in the criminal justice system is a forgotten sister confined to a darkened room.

At a time when large tracts of society are rushing to reclassify themselves as vulnerable, some of those genuinely at the outer reaches continue to be thrust into the dark past.

mclifford@tribune.ie