Health Services Staff
Seanad Éireann — 2026-04-23
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Neale Richmond (FG), Dublin Rathdown

These reforms are to ensure that our health workforce keeps pace with future population and demographic changes. The reforms are necessary to build future workforce capacity. As of mid-2025, 38 physician assistants were employed in HSE-funded services in Ireland. The role did not have standardised roles and responsibilities, however.
With regard to training, the Royal College of Surgeons in Ireland, as the Senator outlined, offers a two-year physician associate master’s qualification. Graduates spend two years studying in good faith that there will be employment opportunities in the HSE at the end of their studies. The Minister for Health has requested that the HSE communicates directly with these students and graduates. Now that the report will be shortly published, students and graduates will have greater clarity on the role of the physician assistant.
I will bring everything the Senator outlined to the desk of the Minister, Deputy Carroll MacNeill. I sincerely thank the Senator for ensuring that this has been to the fore of the debate. I have no doubt the report and its recommendations, and implementation of same, will be something that will work better not just for our health service but, crucially, for physician assistants. The Senator has played a major part in securing that. I thank her for that.

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Record URI: https://data.oireachtas.ie/akn/ie/debateRecord/seanad/2026-04-23/debate/main
Retrieved: 2026-08-14T04:54:51+00:00
Sitting date: 2026-04-23