A recruitment freeze at the Health Service Executive is to end today, confirmed yesterday by HSE chief executive Bernard Gloster.
The freeze was introduced last October and extended in November to include all categories of health service workers, with the exception of consultants, doctors in training and nurses and midwives who graduated in 2023.
Mr Gloster said that despite the hiring embargo, the HSE recruited more staff than it lost.
The freeze was implemented in an attempt to tighten spending, as the HSE as the faced a €1.4 billion deficit. At that time, Mr Gloster said that the HSE budget for 2024 was to be inadequate.
However, the Government announced last week that the HSE is to be given an extra €1.5 billion in funding.
Better quality healthcare was cited as the reason for the extra funding, as well as the difficulty of providing health services, the ongoing impact of the pandemic period and the heightened inflationary environment.