The number of people waiting for treatment on public hospital waiting lists has gone above the 30,000 mark for the first time in several years.
New figures produced by the Health Service Executive show that in September there were 30,756 children and adults waiting for more than three months for elective (non-urgent) in-patient or day case procedures.
There were just under 10,000 adults or children on waiting lists for in-patient treatment and 20,765 waiting longer than three months for day case treatment. The September figures represent an increase of about 2,000 over the figures for August.