Dáil Éireann Debate, Thursday - 22 January 2026
62. Deputy Shay Brennan asked the Minister for Health the action being taken on foot of the recent “Ireland’s Future Health and Social Care Workforce” report; and if she will make a statement on the matter. [4969/26]
View answerIreland’s Future Health and Social Care Workforce paper sets out the vision and long-term plan for the health and social care workforce. The paper sets out an evidence-based strategic direction for the health and social care workforce for the next 15 years. It details twenty actions to be taken in the years ahead to address future workforce challenges in addition to building on actions already committed to by Government in recent years. These actions sit under five interconnected pillars; Plan, Build, Optimise Performance, Recruit & Retain and Invest.
The paper builds on the roadmap set out in May 2025 by the Minister for Health in the Path to Universal Healthcare – Sláintecare & Programme for Government 2025+. The Sláintecare Vision is to build capacity, improve access, improve service quality and enable reform.
It is not feasible nor practical to assume that the workforce will continue to grow in line with the increasing demand. Reforming our care pathways with a person-centred approach that is built around the patient and the staff and exploring strategies to improve healthcare team performance, efficiency and quality of care will bolster our efforts to meet future demand.
Moving forward, the Department of Health is enhancing our ability to plan with a strong focus on a good foundation of workforce data, data on health professionals in training and a cross-Government collaborative approach including ongoing engagement and collaboration with the Departments of Further and Higher Education, Children, Disability and Equality, Education and Youth and Public Expenditure, Infrastructure, Public Service Reform and Digitalisation
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 Department of Further and Higher Education 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 - Minister for Health publishes paper on Ireland’s Future Health and Social Care Workforce
