Independent Ireland’s Ken O’Flynn TD has described the revelation that more than 6,500 funded HSE posts remain unfilled as “a damning indictment of failure at the very top of the health system.”
Deputy O’Flynn said that while hospitals and community services are operating under intense pressure, the Department of Health is sitting on tens of millions of euro in unspent staff funding.
“Every week, families wait months for basic appointments, elderly patients are stranded on trolleys, and nurses are pushed to exhaustion. Yet the money to hire staff is already in the system. It’s beyond incompetence – it’s neglect,” he said.
O’Flynn called for full disclosure of how many posts are funded but vacant in each hospital group, how long those roles have been left unfilled, and how much pay funding has been redirected elsewhere.
“People are denied care because the State cannot manage a simple hiring process. If the same level of inefficiency occurred in the private sector, heads would roll. Accountability has to start at the top.”
The Irish Congress of Trade Unions (ICTU) group of healthcare unions warned last week that more than 6,500 HSE jobs are vacant despite funding being available for these roles as the HSE struggles to find the right people.
The HSE was only able to fill 9% of maternity leave vacancies across all types of jobs in the Midwest region alone, the unions were told.
A spokesperson for ICTU, which includes the Irish Nurses and Midwives Organisation, Fórsa, and Siptu, said: “The HSE were unable to provide substantial details regarding recruitment and the filling of maternity leave. In one HSE health area, only 9% of maternity leave cover has been filled. This is unacceptable to us as a group of unions.
A HSE ban on recruitment had been in place between October 2023 and July 2024.
Deputy O’Flynn said Independent Ireland will continue to push for a regional recruitment and retention plan for Munster and for a public audit of all unfilled HSE posts.
“This government has failed to manage health recruitment, failed to deliver regional equality, and failed to spend the money it already has. Every unfilled post represents a service denied. That is not acceptable in any republic worthy of the name.”