The HSE is asking some hospitals to prioritise urgent treatment and Covid care over the next two weeks due to pressure on the system.
The executive has also asked hospital managers to identify extra ICU capacity to deal with an expected rise in Covid patients.
There are 611 people with the virus in hospital and 118 in intensive care - with just 17 adult ICU beds available nationwide.
HSE boss Paul Reid says they're putting measures in place to ease the pressure on hospitals.
"We are taking actions with each of the hospitals to see and identify what extra surge capacity we can put in place in terms of redeployment of resources to create extra ICU beds and support the system in putting those together.
"We do have to take immediate and urgent actions, and some of that does surround elective care, where we will have to prioritise urgent elective care."
