Private patients from outside Dublin are just as responsible for the beds crisis in the Dublin maternity hospitals as asylum seekers, according to Dr Maurice Gueret, a member of the Eastern Regional Health Authority.
"I am concerned that the issue of asylum seekers continues to raise its head where problems with our health services are being discussed," he said in a statement.
"One might as well blame the legions of private patients from the south-east, midlands and north-east who seek asylum from their own county maternity services by paying homage and guineas to the more attractive obstetricians of Dublin city."
"Or we could blame the legal profession for encouraging a proliferation of caesarean births that sees one in five mothers and babies remaining as inpatients for 10 days instead of two."
Most mothers are kept in hospital for too long after birth and could be discharged in 12 to 48 hours, he said.