The Tánaiste has promised additional resources for the health service, along with radical reform.
Answering questions in the Dáil for the first time as Minister for Health, Mary Harney said that the remit of the National Treatment Purchase Fund may be extended.
She also said that her department will carry out an audit of land no longer needed by health boards which could be sold off to raise funds.
Ms Harney listed her priorities as sorting out Accident and Emergency, raising the income threshold for medical cards, and reducing waiting lists.
ESRI study criticises health service
Meanwhile, a new study by the Economic and Social Research Institute indicates that the health of Irish people on average incomes is suffering because they are postponing expensive visits to their family doctors.
The ESRI also found that the Republic's older citizens are more than twice as likely to be poor than those of the EU as a whole.
The institute ranks the quality of Ireland's health service at 21st out of 22 wealthier countries, with only the United States behind this country.
