Increasing the number of hospital beds will not solve the problem in A&E wards without more effective use of existing beds, the Dáil was told.
After an unprecedented number of patients - almost 500 - were left on trolleys on Wednesday, the Health Service Executive announced the creation of a dedicated task force to deal with the A&E crisis.
Rejecting sharp Opposition criticism over the crisis, Minister for Health Mary Harney said the "situation is changing". The winter vomiting bug had resulted in the closure of 100 acute beds, which was a "considerable loss of capacity".
But amid persistent calls for more hospital beds, Ms Harney insisted that "unless we use the capacity provided by the taxpayer as effectively as possible, no amount of new beds will ever solve the problem".
Fine Gael leader Enda Kenny said that 18 months ago the interim HSE had suggested setting up a dedicated A&E taskforce. "If the proposal had been accepted, we would be 18 months further on than the taskforce the Tánaiste now proposes to establish." He said the 10-point plan Ms Harney published when she was appointed in 2004 was "now in tatters".
Labour leader Pat Rabbitte reminded the Tánaiste that she had said in January last year that A&E units would be a "litmus test" for her and the Government. That was before the problem, "bad as it was, had not reached anything like the level to which it has since sunk".
Green Party spokesman John Gormley asked when she would "recognise that the problem is one of capacity". Sinn Féin's spokesman Caoimhghín Ó Caoláin said that "with a Cabinet sub-committee in place we do not need further task forces".
Ms Harney quoted an A&E consultant in Donegal who said there were pressures but "there is light at the end of the tunnel and change is taking place".
She said change would only take place when the issues in each hospital were dealt with.
