The Taoiseach defended Monday's special Cabinet meeting on the health services during exchanges with Opposition deputies. Mr Ahern said the State knew there had been "a useful day's work, for the first time, looking at a number of the important issues to be dealt with in the health area".

"I think we will benefit greatly for now, in the short term and into the future, on the detailed background work to deliver on policies which the Minister for Health has been working on."

He added that this was a follow-up on the last review in 1994.

"We will be looking at areas like the hospital-bed capacity, the hospital-doctor working practices, the primary care needs, the training, employment and rewarding of nurses and the use of resources within the system."

Earlier, the Fine Gael leader, Mr Michael Noonan, accused the Government of failing to take any decision to tackle the growing crisis in the health services despite the fact that people were still on waiting lists five years after the coalition had come into office.

"Waiting lists at 28,000 are unacceptably high. The national cancer strategy is in disarray. Accident and emergency departments are in chaos."

He asked if Mr Ahern was going to use the excuse given by Mr Charles Haughey in 1989 that nobody had told him how bad the health services were.

The Labour leader, Mr Ruairi Quinn, challenged the Taoiseach to explain the "extraordinary repudiation, if not a downright declaration of no confidence", proclaimed by the Minister for Finance in the Minister for Health. Mr McCreevy, he claimed, had said that not alone would there be no extra money allocated, but that the money already given to the Minister had been badly spent.