The Department of Health has referred a European Court of Justice ruling to the Attorney General. The court has ruled that governments should pay for their citizens' medical treatment abroad if there is undue delay in providing it at home.
A Department spokesman said there were 26,382 people on waiting lists for treatment in the Republic in March, but he could not confirm reports that 43 per cent of those had been on the list for over a year.
Fine Gael's spokesman on health, Mr Gay Mitchell, said the ruling's implications were unclear and called on the Minister for Health, Mr Martin, "to outline in precise terms" what it would mean for Ireland, especially on the issue of abortion.
Mr Stephen McMahon of the Irish Patients' Association cautiously welcomed the judgment. He said it posed several ethical issues and asked for a meeting of European health ministers to discuss protocols necessary for the judgment's implementation.
Problems could arise between countries with different waiting times for medical procedures, he said. Speaking on RTE, a Waterford-based hospital consultant, Dr Garrett Fitzgerald, said it was a "very welcome development. "In a civilised situation we would treat patients here, but we don't have that."
He said there were excellent facilities in Denmark, the Netherlands and France, but "we dropped out of that league years ago".