The Health Minister Simon Harris has said he plans to bring a review on bed capacity to government before the end of the month.
Minister Harris is also proposing to advertise for a head of healthcare reform and agree a date for GP pay talks in a bid to solve the trolley crisis.
A total of 551 patients were waiting on beds in hospitals across the country today, down from 575 the INMO recorded yesterday.
Minister Harris said: "It's bizarre that during Celtic Tiger Ireland when we were building more schools and roads in this country, nobody thought it would be a good idea to build more hospitals.
"Decisions were made when this country perhaps had more money than sense to take hospital beds out of the system. I'm the minister who's putting beds back into the system, but it also has to be about reform and doing more in the community."