Sinn Fein says the Government’s health budget won’t help doctors and nurses through the difficult winter ahead.
€250m is being allocated to try and address the waiting list crisis while over €10m is being earmarked for 19 new ICU beds.
A record 900,000 people are currently waiting for a hospital appointment.
Sinn Fein’s health spokesperson David Cullinane says the Government’s plans won’t solve this.
"I've met managers of hospitals, and all of them are saying that emergency department attendances are up, the trolley count is up, we have over 900,000 people on some sort of waiting list.
"What the government has proposed is not one single additional acute inpatient bed over and above what was committed to last year.
"In all of those hospitals that I was in, they're saying that the need more hospital beds, that consultants can't perform surgeries."
