Nearly 105,000 children are now on hospital waiting lists.

New figures released to Newstalk show that 20,000 children have been longer than a year and a half for appointments and procedures.

Nearly 19,000 of these are waiting for their first outpatient appointment while 1,100 are on the inpatient list.

Meanwhile, over 181,000 people over the age of 65 are on hospital waiting lists.

Some 32,000 of these have been waiting longer than 18 months.

2,600 have been waiting over 18 months for inpatient care, and over 29,000 for outpatient care.

Investment

Health Minister Stephen Donnelly has said the Covid pandemic continues to have an impact on hospital care.

Irish Medical Organisation Dr Denis McCauley told Newstalk the problem has been ongoing for years.

“I think these figures don’t surprise general practitioners and doctors generally,” he said.

“This was situation that was present before COVID. The COVID crisis has made this worse but it is representative of underfunding of the hospital-based system for many decades and we are living with this on a day-to-day basis.”

Pressure

He said the issue is putting pressure on GPs.

“Quite a proportion of our time is taken up with patients coming, trying to get themselves seen quicker,” he said.

“They know they are on a waiting list and they come to us to see if we can do anything for them.

“It is very demoralising for hem and it is very demoralising for us. We have a number of sore, sick and people who are getting patently very ill in front of our eyes who unfortunately are having to wait far too long.”

Minister Donnelly said €350 million is being invested in reducing the waiting lists this year.