The Irish Medical Organisation (IMO) has claimed that 2,500 new hospital beds will not be enough to meet health service demands.

Earlier this year, the Department of Health published the Health Service Capacity Review. It suggested that a minimum of 2,500 additional hospital beds are necessary over the coming years to cope with expected demand up to 2030.

However, speaking at the IMO's Annual General Meeting in Killarney, new IMO president, Dr Peadar Gilligan, said that this figures was based on ‘a set of generous assumptions', which are unlikely to be fulfilled.

The figures proposed assume that a range of other initiatives will occur at the same time, such as a major programme of investment and reform. However, Dr Gilligan insisted that there are no grounds for confidence in the ability of politicians to successfully introduce the wide-ranging reforms that are needed to support these additional beds.

He said that the Government should use the higher-end target of 7,000 additional beds for planning purposes.

"We cannot afford to lose the next five years preparing for a target of additional beds which is simply too low. We need to be realistic and begin to plan on the basis of the upper end of the range of additional bed requirements set out in the capacity review, not the minimum.

"Planning for the worst while hoping for the best is the wisest course of action in healthcare. Planning on the basis of best possible outcomes is unwise and risks ongoing patient hardship," Dr Gilligan said.

He also warned that additional beds will not solve the shortage of consultants.

"We have a consultant recruitment crisis as it is. We need a comprehensive plan on how we are going to train, recruit and retain the hundreds of additional consultants that will be required to support the patients being treated in these additional beds," he added.