An alcohol levy should be introduced in the Budget to provide additional funding for the health services because of the high-levels of alcohol abuse, the Irish Hospital Consultants Association (IHCA) said today.
In its pre-Budget submission, the IHCA said the rate of binge drinking by people from an early age placed a significant burden on the health services.
The association also expressed concern at the level of obesity, saying the issue now takes up to 8 per cent of health budgets internationally.
To counter a shortage of Irish doctors the IHCA has called for the number of overseas students places in Irish medical school to be capped at 25 per cent.
"As a manner of some urgency we should take the practical approach of increasing the size of our medical schools and their annual intake," the IHCA said.
It also called for the additional 3,000 beds, promised within ten years in 2001, to be provided. It said just 295 of these were now available and that Ireland's ratio of hospital beds compared to population was below the EU average.
"The EU average is 4.4 acute beds per thousand population while we have 3.05. If Ireland had the EU average we would have 17,500 beds rather than the present compliment of 12,000."