The Irish Medical Organisation (IMO) said yesterday's Budget was a "lost opportunity".
IMO president Dr Christine O'Malley said: "Never have we had so much money and never has there been a clearer need to invest in the public health service.
"However, the real and significant problems in our health service will not be resolved by merely throwing money at them. Until multi-annual, ringfenced funding can be applied in a planned, rational and appropriate way, the health service will continue to stagger from crisis to crisis."
Dr O'Malley said the cap on employment in the health service has "hampered a plethora of programmes" but that the real obstacle to progress is the deficit in capital spending, which she said prevents the provision of 3,000 permanent, acute, in-patient, public hospital beds.
"Since 3,000 such beds (a decrease of 29 per cent) were stripped from the public hospital system in the 1980s, the population has grown by 23 per cent. The arithmetic is simple and, no matter what the politicians try to tell us, until the balance is redressed, the health service can never be properly rebuilt."
IMO chairman Dr Martin Daly said it was "most disappointing" the Government did nothing to address the drop in the number of people eligible for medical cards. He said the percentage of the population covered under the scheme was now at its lowest in the 10 years since the Government came to office.
The IMO welcomed the increase in excise on cigarettes but said it was a pity the Minister for Finance did not take such an "enlightened" public health approach in relation to alcohol.