The Irish Nurses and Midwives Organisation has called on the HSE to immediately issue permanent contracts to newly qualified nurses and midwives, warning that 2026 graduates are being left without jobs despite substantial hospital vacancies.
The INMO highlighted 23 vacant midwifery posts at University Hospital Galway, yet the midwifery graduates have not been offered these posts which will impact on the ability to maintain services at present levels. There are more than 80 nursing and midwifery vacancies at Cork University Maternity Hospital with DOMNINO services under threat.
Failure to offer contracts is arising all over the country, from Drogheda to Sligo and Letterkenny to Cork.
The union said withholding or withdrawing graduate offers breaches longstanding national employment commitments, reaffirmed in HSE circulars and its 2026 graduate employment memo, and undermines Government policy on recruitment, retention, and safe staffing. Regional financial controls cannot justify leaving urgently needed posts unfilled.
INMO General Secretary Phil Ní Sheaghdha said:
It is completely unacceptable that nurses and midwives who are about to begin their careers are being left in limbo when there are significant vacancies across the health service.
The HSE and Government are actively breaching their own policies by withholding job offers to these young and eager graduates. The HSE has had a position of offering newly qualified nurses and midwives a full-time permanent post on graduation for many years. This is national HSE policy. Health regions operate within it; they cannot set it aside through local cost control.
Many of the HSE regions that are withholding offers have been singled out for poor financial controls, but newly qualified nurses and midwives must not become victims of poor financial planning.
For the last two years, the government announced an increase in nursing and midwifery undergraduate college places, increasing training places will achieve little if graduates are then left without permanent jobs.
These graduates are highly sought after internationally, with health services in the UK and Australia actively recruiting Irish graduates. If this is how the HSE are treating new graduates at the beginning of their careers, what hope do we have of convincing them that they are needed here in our public health service?
INMO New Graduate Officer, Ralph Brennan added:
After four years of study, exams and clinical placements, these new graduates should be looking forward to starting their careers.
These are young nurses and midwives who want to stay, work and build their careers in Ireland. It is unbelievable that they are being left in limbo when they are so desperately needed.
We cannot expect young nurses and midwives to stay in Ireland if this is how we treat them at the very beginning of their careers.