Agreement has been reached between the country's biggest nursing union and the Health Minister on how to count the number of patients waiting on trolleys in hospital emergency departments.
The breakthrough was announced today by Minister James Reilly in his address to the annual conference of the Irish Nurses and Midwives Organisation in Kilkenny.
Up to now nurses have gathered trolley figures at 8am while the HSE has collected the figures at 2pm.
Minister Reilly said he believed that the way the figures are collected by the INMO is the correct way.
Daily figures from the INMO have consistently exceeded the figures from the HSE and it has led to regular clashes between the sides.
Nurses began reporting their trolley count figures in 2004.
The INMO says that 377 patients are waiting on trolleys in emergency departments around the country today.
In 2006, former health minister Mary Harney described the number of patients on trolleys as 'a national emergency' and commissioned a task force to examine the issue.
In January, the INMO reported a record 569 patients on trolleys in emergency departments around the country.
INMO President Sheila Dickson has said that while the organisation welcomes the agreement, counting these patients will not solve the problem.
Ms Dickson called for closed beds and facilities to be opened and said the Health Minister had to tackle the practices of consultants.
She was heavily critical of the media for what she claimed were attacks on nurses and midwives, suggesting that the profession was not up for change.
