A report by an international expert on recompression chambers is set to recommend the closure of the Republic's only treatment centre on safety grounds, The Irish Times has learned.
The facility is used mainly to treat divers with "the bends", a potentially fatal condition. If it closes, it could cost up to €4 million a year to send people to Britain for treatment.
The 27-year-old recompression chamber at University College Hospital, Galway, is staffed on a voluntary basis. A modern facility would also offer essential treatment for a range of medical conditions, such as carbon monoxide poisoning and radiation burns.
Dr John Ross, an expert on recompression chambers - which use high pressure oxygen to reverse damage caused by decompression sickness and other illnesses - has inspected the Galway chamber.
His report, due to be published soon, will criticise a lack of modern monitoring facilities in the chamber. It is understood he also found it to be too small to treat serious decompression illness.
Dr Ross is expected to conclude the chamber is not of appropriate standard for a national centre. The country's only other civilian facility, at Craigavon, Co Armagh, is to close following a recent inspection. A portable recompression chamber operated by the Naval Service is normally not available for civilian use.
The Western Health Board has funded the national recompression service since the chamber was purchased in 1976. Early last year it sought funding from the Department of Health for a full national medical hyperbaric service.
Following a visit by Department officials last autumn, the board was requested to file an alternative submission and advised to restrict the proposal to simple replacement of the existing chamber with a view to continuing treatment of decompression illness only. A spokeswoman for the Minister for Health, Mr Martin, said: "The Minister accepts the need to replace the recompression chamber and is waiting for a fully costed proposal to be forwarded to the Department."