The promise of “new funding model” for HSE falls apart after just three months with top-down controls now put in place

• Minister for Health and new HSE CEO must set out precisely the service impact and ensure that frontline roles will not be on the firing line.
• HSE has 136,606 WTE funded posts for 2026 while almost 4,000 HSE staff posts were unfilled at the end of last year, and the INMO state that there are currently 5,000 vacant nursing and midwifery posts.
• More than 765,000 people on outpatient and inpatient wait lists at the end of March 2026.

Labour Health Spokesperson Marie Sherlock TD has called on the Minister for Health and the HSE to outline the precise service impact that a recruitment freeze will have on the health service and to ensure that frontline roles will be protected in any recruitment freeze.

Deputy Sherlock said:

“Funding controls will only make the backlog worse and exacerbate delayed and unmet levels of care if there is no systems change. I am deeply concerned that it appears that we are now going back to the disaster of the blunt pay and numbers strategy.

“We know the impact that had on the least resourced parts of our health service. That is why the Minister must outline the impact that this freeze and deficit will have on frontline services and staff.

“It was crystal clear that the Budget 2026 allocation for health would not cover existing services, a growing population, increasing complexity, demand for care and higher prices.

“I raised in my own budget speech my concerns that the HSE is being run on a tight rope, with supplementary estimates being required to bail it out last year. And already, under-funding and under-budgeting is coming home to roost.

“The Minister and the HSE must outline to the Dáil and the health committee the impact that this recruitment freeze will have, the exact posts that will not be filled, the knock on impact on clinical staff who may have to fulfil greater administration roles, and if any clinical roles will be impacted either now or into the future.

“It is hugely frustrating too that Minister and HSE are taking hands off approach to dealing with delayed transfers of care which is imposing enormous costs on acute hospitals when people could be more cost efficiently looked after in step down care.

“We are aware of multiple business cases that have been submitted by acute hospitals for expansion of step-down care that have gone unanswered. It is a simple reality that if the HSE invests in step-down care now, it will save itself significant cost into the future and be better able to manage increasing admissions.

“Crucially, we must also address runaway spending on agency staffing too. We know that the cost of agency spending is significantly higher than direct employment. Last year, the HSE spent more than €830m on agency staffing which is more than €106m higher than the previous year.

“This is happening despite a clear commitment by the HSE to drive agency spending down. The HSE must make it clear its plans to reduce agency spending under the €720m 2026 agency spending cap.

“The Department promised a new way of doing things in moving to population-based resource allocation, which was to enable greater autonomy, great equity, and to reduce waiting times and address bottlenecks. Instead, the new HSE regions have already gone into cost-cutting exercises. This new model has not changed the fact that the budgeting and forecasting for HSE is simply dysfunctional, and the Department are continuing to run the health service on a tightrope.”