The Health Minister Leo Varadkar has admitted that progress on reducing waiting times in emergency departments has been slow - but says it is improving.

Mr Varadkar made the comments at a gathering in Dublin of health professionals from all five clinical programmes.

This was the first ever of its kind.

Yesterday morning, 459 people were waiting on wards and trolleys of emergency departments across the country.

Mr Varadkar says it was always going to take some time to make improvements.