Over 906 thousand people are on hospital waiting lists.
The Irish Hospital Consultants Association's warning it could take 15 years to get through the backlog in care, which was made considerably worse by the pandemic.
Ahead of next month's Budget, the group is calling for more resources and better employment conditions, as it struggles to fill the 882 permanent posts currently left vacant in Irish hospitals.
Vice President of the IHCA, Professor Rob Landers, says people's health is suffering due to a lack of resources:
"The reality is, underground is really brutal I mean we're looking at children being denied care, we're looking at the elderly being denied care, we're looking at huge delays across the healthcare system, we're looking at the mental health services being grossly under resourced in terms of consultant numbers. So, there are huge impacts, right across the island of Ireland, and it's having devastating impacts on people's lives."
