There's been a further increase in the number of patients waiting for a hospital appointment.
At the end of July, 564,829 patients were waiting for a first hospital outpatient consultation.
That compares to 560,251 people at the end of June, representing an increase of more than 4,500 in a month.
Around 175,000 people have now been waiting for an appointment for more than a year.
The latest figures released by the National Treatment Purchase Fund also show 68,807 patients were waiting for an appointment for their inpatient or day case treatment, while 22,592 were waiting to receive an appointment for their GI Endoscopy.
Reacting to the new figures, the Irish Hospital Consultants Association said Ireland continues to have the worst waiting times in Europe.
The association says there's been an average of nearly 7,000 people added to the outpatient waiting list each month this year.
IHCA President Dr Donal O'Hanlon argued: "The consultant recruitment and retention crisis is a key factor in the long wait times patients now face. We need to end this crisis.
"To do so, Minister for Health, Simon Harris, must honour his commitment to begin talks with consultant representative bodies in September.”
Sinn Féin's health spokesperson Louise O'Reilly, meanwhile, said the latest figures were "very disappointing but an inevitable consequence of government policy".
She suggested: "This is the same story almost every month and is a clear indication that we do not have enough staff or capacity in our hospitals to dramatically reduce these waiting lists."
