Funding increases for mental-health services in some parts of the country are being diverted elsewhere within the health sector, a new report on psychiatric services suggests.
The practice has resulted in "appalling" conditions in older institutions and a failure to modernise mental-health services, according to research by the Irish Psychiatric Association.
The analysis of figures from 1998 to 2003, entitled The Black Hole, showed there did not appear to be any relationship between the size of the population catchment area and the allocated budget.
Dr Siobhán Barry of the association said regional disparities and a lack of a correlation with new services was due largely to neglect at Government level.
She said these issues had been raised repeatedly by the inspector of mental hospitals. However, there was little sign they had been taken seriously. There was also widespread concern in the mental-health sector that services were gradually being stripped of their resources relative to other health services.
The association's research showed that in the last 15 years, the proportion of the budget allocated to mental-health services has fallen from 13 per cent to 6.8 per cent of the overall budget.
While explanations for disparities have been suggested, the association said it could not account for larger differences.