Four consultant psychiatrists told the Health Service Executive in December that people's lives were at risk because of a lack of secure psychiatric beds.
They warned that beds at St Brendan's Hospital in Grangegorman were being closed at a time when there was an overwhelming need for more secure psychiatric beds.
"The extraordinary decision defies all logic and will put the health and lives of patients, their families, healthcare staff and the public at immediate and serious risk," they said.
"Closing down existing beds will present profound and lasting problems to services in the area. The urgency and importance of this issue cannot be over-stated: the absence of secure psychiatry beds will result in denial of treatment to patients, enormous risk to their families and similar, possibly fatal risks to staff in existing low-security facilities (ie normal psychiatry beds in Dublin."
The letter to the HSE's national director of primary, community and continuing care, Laverne McGuinness, was signed by consultant psychiatrists Prof Patricia Casey, Dr John Sheehan, Dr Brendan Kelly and Dr Eugene Breen.
They said in the letter that their primary concern was for disturbed patients who required secure settings for effective treatment. Their families also needed to know that appropriate facilities were available.
"If St Brendan's Hospital's secure beds are closed, there will be no suitable facility for these patients; they will be denied appropriate care and their families will have to cope with the consequences."
Yesterday, the HSE acknowledged the difficulties accessing secure services and said beds had been closed temporarily as a result of staff shortages.
A spokeswoman said recruitment drives and initiatives had failed to replace the increasing numbers of psychiatric nurses who were retiring from practice or relocating outside of the Dublin region.
Since late 2006, there had been six recruitment campaigns in Britain to recruit nurses however the outcomes had been disappointing, the spokeswoman said. The difficulties were not funding related, she added.
The HSE said new proposals were being examined as was the feasibility of implementing them. There were also plans to maintain and expand services.
Fine Gael's health spokesman Dr James Reilly said the letter was the latest sign of problems with the HSE's ability to respond to serious warnings.
"This letter is a truly shocking read. The prescience of these psychiatrists in foreseeing the possible consequences of the shortage of secure psychiatric beds due to HSE closures is chilling."
Dr Reilly added: "The continued drive to close existing secure beds before alternatives are in place, despite repeated warnings and protestations from professionals, is a major part of those problems."
