Ireland needs 5,000 additional hospital beds to cope with its ageing population and “must at least have a plan” for substantially increased provision in the future, the new president of the Irish Medical Organisation (IMO) has said at its annual general meeting in Killarney. Prof Matthew Sadlier acknowledged the number was “big” and said it might be regarded as aspiration “but it is what Ireland needs”. He said the country’s health services traditionally had a different demographic breakdown to many other European countries because of mass emigration, and that had spared the health service some of the strain experienced elsewhere, but “now we’re catching up”. “Dublin has 20 different locations where you can turn up when you need attention between maternity hospitals, eye and ear hospitals, separate paediatric hospitals, separate general hospitals,” he says. Newcastle Gateshead, which is an equivalent sized city in the United Kingdom, has one super big hospital.

Source: The Irish Times April 09, 2026 21:47 UTC