asked the Minister for Foreign Affairs the number of Irish born inmates in British psychiatric institution.

The UK authorities do not maintain statistics broken down on the basis of nationality for persons being treated in British psychiatric institutions. Accordingly there are no official UK figures for the number of Irish citizens in such institutions.

May I ask the Minister for Foreign Affairs if he would agree to circulate to the House such survey material as is available in answer to this question from the British Medical Research Council?

I have said in my reply — the Deputy is not listening carefully today for some reason — the UK authorities do not maintain statistics broken down on the basis of nationality for persons being treated in British psychiatric institutions. They do not have figures broken down in the manner suggested by the Deputy relating to the number of Irish born inmates in British psychiatric institutions. Those figures are not available. The British do not keep them.

I think I should repeat my question because the Minister did not hear me. The Northern Ireland legal quarterly published research not so long ago quoting survey research on hospitals in Britain that gave the estimated figure by nationality. My request to him was if he could get the information which is updated now and make it available to the House?

The information is not available from the UK Department of Health. We know that and have made inquiries about it since receipt of this question. That is the position.