€48m spent by HSE on agency staff since 2025
The HSE spent €16,560,178 on agency staff in Cork hospitals between January and June 2026. In total last year, the health service spent €31,445,662 on agency staff across six Cork hospitals.
A further €800,000 has been spent on agency staff in primary care since the start of this year, with €2,476,000 having been spent last year.
The figures were released by the HSE to Cork North Central TD Thomas Gould.
The greatest spend on agency staff so far has been in Cork University Hospital (CUH), accounting for €10,439,375 of the hospital’s budget for 2026.
Next was Bantry General Hospital, where €2,430,121 was spent on agency staff. Mallow General Hospital and Mercy University Hospital have both also spent over €1 million on the staff since the beginning of the year, at €1,619,398 and €1,481,096 respectively.
Cork University Maternity Hospital and South Infirmary Victoria University Hospital have both stayed under €1 million so far this year, at €503,535 and €86,653 respectively.
In a statement provided to Deputy Gould, Sonya Cotter, Integrated Healthcare Area Manager Cork North and East said that an increased demand on services led to an increased spend on agency staff, but that the HSE are committed to reducing this.
She said that a range of measures are being implemented to support a “sustained reduction” in agency expenditure.
Deputy Gould said: “Agency workers provide essential care in Cork however private agency staffing has become a permanent substitute for directly recruiting and retaining the staff our health service needs. This is happening while recruitment is being curtailed and services face tighter controls on filling vacant posts.
“Cork healthcare is in crisis and long-term agency staffing is a plaster over a gaping wound. This is not the way to run a health service and it is not the solution to a recruitment crisis.
“The minister and the HSE must publish a conversion plan with firm targets and deadlines. Funded vacancies must be filled and recurring agency roles converted to direct employment,” he said.
Jamie Murphy, general secretary of the Cork-based Independent Workers’ Union, which represents agency staff around the country said: “Effectively these agencies shouldn’t exist.
“Agency hiring is a means of getting around employment law. If an employer has an issue with an agency worker and wants them gone, they just request that the agency removes them, without needing to go through any proper procedure.
“In the case of hospitals, workers who do the same job, but who are employed directly by the HSE or by an agency will have vastly different conditions of employment and pay, to the detriment of the agency worker. The agency then pockets the difference, because they are charging a premium for their staff,” he said.