Gardaí are still waiting to interview a man with mental health problems about the stabbing to death of another man in Dublin last weekend.
Michael Hughes (30), Cuba, Banagher, Co Offaly, was stabbed more than 70 times with a garden shears.
The killing has drawn attention to gaps in the mental health services as it has since emerged that Mr Hughes's alleged attacker had presented at two hospitals in Dublin three times last week seeking help.
It is understood he left the A&E units of St James's hospital - where he is now being treated - and St Vincent's Hospital of his own accord while he was being assessed.
The Psychiatric Nurses Association said yesterday it was now time for the Health Service Executive to address shortcomings in services for the mentally ill.
Association general secretary Des Kavanagh said medical staff were at risk of being killed by psychiatric patients because the lack of care options for seriously disturbed people is so acute.
He said his members had been forced over the past two years to deal with 90 psychiatric patients who proved so difficult to manage they had to be transferred from Dublin hospitals to a secure unit at St Brendan's Psychiatric Hospital in Dublin. But a number of the secure beds in St Brendan's were recently closed.
Fine Gael's spokesman on mental health Dan Neville said the lack of secure psychiatric beds was a symptom of the Government's wholesale neglect and underfunding of the mental health services.
"For years, mental health has been treated not just as the poor relation but as an outcast in the context of overall health and general spending," he said.
"One in four people will suffer from some form of psychiatric illness in their lifetime, yet the Fianna Fáil/Progressive Democrat Government presided over a reduction in the percentage of the health budget devoted to mental health.
"It has also been alleged that monies allocated for the development of the psychiatric services has been hived off to pay budget deficits in the primary and continuing care sector," he added.
"The failure of the Minister for Finance to allocate resources for the development of the services in 2008 is another indication that the neglect of the psychiatric services is to scandalously continue," he continued.
In the attack in Dublin early on Saturday morning, Mr Hughes was stabbed at an apartment complex in Harold's Cross. The attack occurred as he slept in the corridor of the Manor Villas apartment complex, having been unable to gain access to a friend's accommodation where he was due to stay. He had travelled to Dublin for a friend's engagement party.
His alleged attacker lives in a nearby apartment block and was arrested in the immediate vicinity with a garden shears.
The suspect's wife had gone to a Garda station with her young child last week complaining her husband had locked her out of their apartment. She also told gardaí her husband was acting erratically and was depressed, adding she feared for his safety.
Gardaí assisted in housing her and her child in secure accommodation but were unable to locate her husband.