Fianna Fáil is calling for more investment in the health service – amid claims that the overcrowding crisis will cost lives.

The Irish Nurses and Midwives Organisation has said there were 601 patients on trolleys earlier today – the third highest figure so far this year.

University Hospital Limerick was the most overcrowded with 48 people waiting on a bed – followed by Cork University Hospital with 43.

Fianna Fáil’s health spokesperson Billy Kelleher said more needs to be done: “We have to start moving people who are in the hospital system and don’t want to be there and shouldn’t be there – who have received their treatment and move them to step-down facilities.

“We have to look at private nursing homes and alternatives to what is happening whereby people are stuck in hospital and unable to be discharged because of lack of suitable accommodation.”