ACCUSATIONS by the Psychiatric Nurses' Association (PNA) that the murdered women, who availed of psychiatric back-up care from St Brendan's hospital, were "unsupervised" and "left to their own devices" were denied by the Eastern Health Board yesterday.
A spokeswoman said: "I would deplore the fact that they (the PNA) would be appearing to use this dreadful murder to further industrial relations claims that are under review."
Earlier, the St Brendan's PNA branch issued a statement saying it was concerned at staffing levels at the Orchard View hostels, "particularly at night".
"The incidents at St Brendan's last night were tragic in the extreme and serve to highlight the dangerous rostering practices of the Eastern Health Board," the statement says.
But the spokeswoman said the women were not left to their own devices, but were receiving the type of care "which the consultant medical staff felt was the most appropriate for them".
"What happened is horrendous. There is shock in St Brendan's, but it could have happened to anybody," she said.
She added that the murdered women were not under Eastern Health Board care per se. "They were discharged. We were giving them the support of our psychiatric services. They were not patients of our hospital," she said.
The inconspicuous five terraced houses give no indication that they have a sheltered hostel status. Three of the houses have high-support hostel status, involving a relatively large amount of supervision.
The two murdered women, who were former psychiatric patients, were housed with one other woman in one of the two low-support hostels and were involved with the community, working in sheltered workshops as part of the rehabilitation training programme, supervision would not be "day to day", a spokeswoman said.
"The two women were involved in a working and retraining programme, which meant that they worked out of the house on a daily basis. If they were not able for it, they would have been in a medium or high-support hostel," she said.
The health board has over 930 people living in 106 hostels or group homes, with over 400 cared staff looking after them. Previously, they would have lived under institutional care in such places as St Brendan's or St Ita's, Portrane. St Brendan's now has only 300 patients - it once catered for 1,000.
The spokeswoman said the hostel support scheme has evolved over the past 11 years, in response to a Government report, Psychiatric Services Planning for the Future, and is aimed at providing a better quality of life by promoting self-esteem. Needs were assessed on an individual basis. "The whole point of this is that we are training people to live independently," she said.
As part of that down-scaling of institutional services, the 74-acre St Brendan's site is expected to come on the market later this year with a price tag of £15 million, as reported in The Irish Times property supplement this week.
According to last year's policy document, Psychiatric Services - Development Programme into the Next Millennium, the shift to community care and halfway-house-type structures "involves the patient with his or her consultant, it involves the multi-disciplinary care team, and will invariably involve the patient's next of kin and relatives.
"Housing reflects the choice and preferences of the client, and clients are encouraged to aspire toe a higher degree of independence, which may lead to independent living in his/her home or flat ....".