An improved child and adolescent psychiatric service is planned as a result of the Brendan O'Donnell case, in which a priest and a mother and child were shot dead in the East Clare woodlands.
The Minister for Health, Mr Cowen, has informed the Clare Fianna Fail deputy, Mr Tony Killeen, that new legislation to improve the relationship between the courts and the mental health services is under preparation.
The improvements in services and relationships with courts have been prompted by last year's review of the Brendan O'Donnell case.
It was ordered after the longest murder trial in the history of the State, in which O'Donnell was convicted in April 1996 for the murder of Imelda Riney, her son Liam (3), and Father Joe Walsh, in Cregg Wood, Whitegate, in May 1994.
During the trial the court was told O'Donnell had been referred for psychiatric assessment on four occasions before he was nine and his failure to turn up for a hospital appointment in Ennis had not been followed up. Mid-Western Health Board managers acknowledged he had fallen out of the system.
In the aftermath of the O'Donnell trial, the then minister, Mr Michael Noonan, ordered a review of the case by the Inspector of Mental Hospitals, Dr Dermot Walsh.
While Dr Walsh confirmed that his report had been completed and submitted to the Minister before the end of 1996, Mr Killeen raised questions in May of this year as to why the results of the review had not been passed on to the Mid-Western Health Board as the authority involved in the case.
Mr Cowen has now confirmed to Mr Killeen that the Inspector of Hospitals "identified the need for improvements in the child and adolescent psychiatric services and in the forensic psychiatric services to the courts and to the prison services on a national basis".
In a letter to Mr Killeen, the Minister for Health states: "My Department has commissioned a review of the Provision of Child and Adolescent Psychiatric Services throughout the country and it is my intention to prepare a development plan for these services when this review is completed."
Mr Cowen adds that in addition to the new mental health legislation, the Department of Health is also working with the Department of Justice to examine ways in which psychiatric services for prisoners can be improved.