Rising demand on the health service due to Ireland’s ageing population is not a problem for the future, but one that is impacting hospitals daily, the Minister for Health has said. She described the scale of the increase as “quite extraordinary” and cited it as evidence of the constantly growing demand for health services. The Minister played down the prospect of any substantial new investment in hospitals until existing agreements on weekend working were implemented. Changes to rostering across many other disciplines required for hospitals to operate on a six-day basis had been “bought and paid for since 2008”, Carroll MacNeill said. “This isn’t about everybody working harder, doing things the way we’ve always done it, but just doing more of it.

Source: The Irish Times April 11, 2026 23:03 UTC