Dáil Éireann Debate, Wednesday - 21 January 2026
278. Deputy William Aird asked the Minister for Health to detail the expected workforce shortfalls identified in the ESRI-informed modelling; the proposed actions, particularly the expansion of domestic education and training capacity, which will ensure Ireland can meet the health needs of a growing and ageing population over the next 15 years; and if she will make a statement on the matter. [4528/26]
View answerThe ESRI Capacity Reviews commissioned by the Department of Health inform our workforce planning projection model’s demand projections for acute care, primary care and older persons services providing a crucial evidence base. This offers the Department of Health a resource which allows us to better anticipate the needs of our changing population, ensuring there are the right people with the right skills in the right place.
The analysis demonstrates that with implementation of planned health policies and workforce reforms there will be an average annual growth rate required of approximately 1.4% to 2% from 2023 to 2040 for the professions modelled.
The latest data shows that 53% of our nurses and midwives, 43% of our doctors and 41.3% of our Long-term care workers are foreign born/educated. The DOH modelling shows that if we continue with current trends and student numbers, the proportion of our nursing workforce that is domestically educated will decrease further over the 15-year projection period and that we will be reliant on international recruitment to replace the existing workforce and increase the health and social care workforce.
The Government is committed to significantly expanding student places in healthcare-related programmes in Higher Education Institutions. Our goal is to identify a steady state and a short to medium term target of student place expansion that would gradually increase the domestic supply of healthcare workers whilst also acknowledging capacity constraints within HEIs and clinical placement infrastructure.
Since 2022, more than 1,300 additional training places have been delivered across priority health and social care disciplines, with a further 600 places on track for 2026. Significant funding in these priority disciplines of health and social care has been secured for 2025–2026 and beyond, and DFHERIS officials and the HEA are progressing further expressions of interest to the higher education sector to expand training capacity where it is most needed.
An Expression of Interest (EOI) process for HSCPs is scheduled to be conducted by the HEA in early 2026. This will provide an important opportunity for Higher Education Institutions to propose new training programmes and expand existing ones in high-priority areas related to the Health, Disability and Education sectors.
We need to ensure that at a minimum, we are supplying enough graduates to replace the existing workforce. This is a long-term undertaking, and the recently published Ireland’s Future Health and Social Care Workforce paper outlines the case for change and how we will achieve this.
The paper is available through the following link: www.gov.ie/en/department-of-health/press-releases/minister-for-health-publishes-paper-on-irelands-future-health-and-social-care-workforce/
