A further drop in waiting lists has brought the number of people waiting for hospital treatment to 27,857 at the end of 2000.
But with most of the reduction occurring outside Dublin, the Irish Hospital Consultants' Association said the hospital service in the capital was coming closer to running "an emergency service only".
However, the Minister for Health and Children, Mr Martin, hailed the reduction as "more than significant".
The overall figures show that the numbers of people waiting for treatment fell by 1,800 from the end of September figure of 29,657. The reduction for the Dublin hospitals, which have by far the biggest waiting lists in the country, was 867.
This led the secretary-general of the Irish Hospital Consultants' Association, Mr Finbarr Fitzpatrick, to call for a major campaign to fill 2,000 nursing vacancies. This shortage is the main contributor to the closure of beds and operating theatres in Dublin, he said.
"This is more than a significant reduction," Mr Martin declared yesterday. "It's a reduction that confirms a solidly established trend."
The reduction had been achieved in spite of "unprecedented problems such as nursing shortages which had closed operating theatres in some major acute hospitals." But he said recruitment drives were working and the extra staff recruited would enable hospitals to reopen their facilities.
Some of the reductions announced yesterday are likely to have been due to hospitals checking their waiting lists to see how many people still required treatment. Some may have obtained treatment privately or may have died. The size of the reduction attributable to these factors was not revealed.
The figures show the full-year reduction in the waiting lists (December 1999 to December 2000) at 8,998. There has been a particularly big fall in the numbers waiting for heart surgery: from 1,202 to 545 last December.
Mr Martin said he is considering making waiting lists regional rather than linked to specific hospitals, in an interview published on the website irishhealth.com. This would mean patients could be treated in any hospital in their healthboard area which could provide the treatment. He is also considering a system in which people would move up the waiting list by accumulating points for personal circumstances, length of time on the list and medical factors.
pomorain@irish-times.ie