There are now more than 41,000 patients awaiting surgery in 32 hospitals across the State, the Health Service Executive (HSE) confirmed yesterday.
The figures are higher than those published in July by the National Treatment Purchase Fund (NTPF) - which now has responsibility for collating all waiting list data - because they include patients waiting up to three months for inpatient and day case surgery, data not normally made available.
Of the 41,399 patients waiting, some 24,147 are awaiting day case surgery and 17,252 are awaiting inpatient surgery. Some 4,120 of the patients waiting are children.
Nearly 12,000 adults on the waiting lists are waiting more than six months for treatment. Over 2,000 children are waiting three months or more.
The new figures were contained in a document sent by the NTPF to the HSE's National Hospitals Office and reported by RTÉ News.
The longest waiting list is at St Vincent's hospital, Dublin with 3,190 patients, followed by Galway's University College Hospital with 2,533 patients and Beaumont Hospital in Dublin with 2,497 people waiting.
The NTPF said it never published the numbers of patients waiting up to three months because it said most were seen within three months. The result, however, has been that the NTPF's published waiting list data made it look like fewer people were waiting.
The last NTPF figures published in July indicated 21,456 adults and children were waiting more than three months for surgery or medical treatment and a further 4,430 patients were waiting but unavailable for treatment when called.
They also showed at the time that 10,322 adults and children were waiting for surgical procedures for more than six months and that 2,891 adults and children were waiting more than six months for medical procedures.
This is despite the fact that the 2001 national health strategy promised no patient would have to wait more than three months for treatment by the end of 2004.
The NTPF stressed it can arrange private treatment for any public patient waiting three months or more on a waiting list.
Tom Finn, of the HSE's National Hospitals Office, claimed almost two-thirds of the 41,399 patients waiting were waiting less than three months for their procedure.
The figure also included about 6,000 patients who cancel or don't turn up for their appointments, he said, adding that hospitals were now treating more patients than ever before.
Dr David O'Keeffe, president of the Irish Hospital Consultants' Association, said the figures for the total numbers waiting were a disgrace. People left on a waiting list would end up attending A&E, he said.
Fine Gael health spokesman Dr James Reilly said the figures indicated patients had been betrayed by Fianna Fáil. Labour's Jan O'Sullivan said it was no coincidence that waiting lists continue to grow at a time when the HSE is insisting on cutbacks.