Consultants have demanded the hospital overcrowding crisis be declared a “national emergency”, as the numbers on trolleys hit 760 yesterday during the worst day on record.

The Health Minister claims he has "a very ambitious” plan to deal with hospital overcrowding over the winter months.

The Emergency Department is currently extremely busy, with increased patient attendances causing extreme overcrowding for the past 48 hours.

The UL Hospital’s Group said UHL is “currently managing high volumes of patients that have arisen due to a busy weekend in the ED”.

It is an increase of over 100 on yesterday's number.

Chronic overcrowding continued across the country’s hospitals as 531 admitted patients languished on trolleys in emergency departments and wards today.

Tipperary grandmother Marie Gleeson has spoken of her 24-hour ordeal lying on a trolley overnight in a corridor in University Hospital Limerick emergency department.

10,350 patients were forced to wait on hospital trolleys in January - including 190 children.

Tackling overcrowding and supporting older people are some of the main targets of the HSE’s winter plan.

The scale of the health waiting lists crisis has been laid bare by Fianna Fáil, which estimates 1m patient appointments were outstanding this year. The situation is a “national scandal”, says the party.

An outspoken emergency medicine consultant has described working in an emergency department (ED) as “a bit like working in a human landfill site” where waiting rooms are increasingly like “refugee camps”.

All patients waiting more than nine months for “high volume” operations or procedures are to be offered treatment by the National Treatment Purchase Fund (NTPF).

The dramatic and shocking increase in child and family homelessness was the entirely predictable consequence of a disastrous, failing government policy of relying on the private sector to manage the housing crisis.

The HSE has recruited almost three times more administrative and managerial staff than front-line nurses in the past three years.

There were 649 patients on trolleys in emergency departments or on wards waiting for a hospital bed yesterday, a decrease of just 65 on Monday’s record high of 714.

Embarrassment was one of the emotions I experienced this week in an emergency department (ED).

Campaign groups say urgent action is needed to address the trolley crisis.

There are currently 547 people waiting on beds in hospitals across the country.

For the first time the Irish Nurses and Midwives Organisation (INMO) is to begin counting the number of children without a bed.

Independent Government ministers have demanded the delivery of 500 additional hospital beds by the end of this year.

The Irish Medical Organisation says the HSE has confirmed that all interns will be paid for all hours worked.

Latest: The Emergency Department Taskforce will meet on Monday to discuss hospital overcrowding.

Private hospitals can alleviate the huge pressure on public hospitals by taking their private patients.

Just one in four ambulances is meeting turnaround targets, leaving thousands of patients waiting to be transferred to hospitals.

The Irish Nurses and Midwives Organisation has said there were 601 patients on trolleys earlier today.

Almost 44% of admitted patients on trolleys yesterday were waiting more than nine hours for a hospital bed, it has emerged.

The HSE says they are planning to implement a number of enhanced measures as part of the Winter Plan.

There are fears the trolley crisis could escalate further with a number of weeks to go until the peak of the flu season.

The CEO of the University of Limerick (UL) Hospital Group, Colette Cowan, has vehemently disagreed that hospital managers are to blame for the country's hospital trolley crisis.

An orthopaedic surgeon says measures introduced to improve the trolley crisis have had a detrimental impact on waiting lists.

An orthopaedic surgeon whose operating lists have been cancelled for the past three months has written to every member of the Dáil warning that the health minister’s policy to end the trolley crisis is not working.

The Health Minister Leo Varadkar has said insisting it will take “a number of years” to solve the country's trolley crisis.