The board of St James's Hospital is to seek an urgent meeting with the Health Service Executive (HSE) to discuss the capacity of the intensive care and high dependency units at the hospital.
In a statement released this afternoon the board said it "wishes to emphasise that inadequate capacity in this area is a long-standing and growing problem within the hospital system, which has received interim remedies but still awaits a long-term solution".
Over the past week St James's Hospital blamed the shortage of recovery beds in its operating theatres for the cancellation of some 20 planned surgeries.
The bed shortage left intensive care beds full, with recovery beds in operating theatres also used for patients in need of intensive care.
Earlier the HSE said that over the last three years ICU capacity at the hospital has increased by more than 50 per cent, after the hospital sought "a solution to capacity difficulties."
The Executive has now called on management to explain "why these difficulties have resurfaced at this time."