A Longford solicitor believes more supports need to be provided for people with mental health difficulties before the courts.
Brid Mimnagh is one of just a handful of women practicing law at District Court level in the Shannonside region, alongside her business partner Fiona Baxter, who is also a solicitor.
The long-serving officer of the court admits the challenges facing legal practitioners have grown in recent years especially in representing clients who may have mental health or addiction issues.
Speaking on the Joe Finnegan Show, she feels gardaí and prison officers face huge difficulties trying to work with people without appropriate training being provided:
"The mental health issues are, and I think they feed into probably the use of illicit substances, one feeds into the other. The Gardai are trained in as much as possible in regards to dealing with people with mental health and so are the prisoner officers but they are not psychiatrists or psychiatric nurses and in those initial phases they have a huge amount to deal with. "
