• ‘The IMO supports any move that will facilitate better and more accessible care for patients throughout the week, but it is a fallacy to think this can happen without firstly having the correct numbers of consultant and healthcare staff in place’

 
Thursday August 20, 2026. The Irish Medical Organisation (IMO) has said any accusation that consultants are not working enough weekend shifts in public hospitals was a “fallacy” that did not in any way account for a major and sustained shortfall in doctors in the health system.

The IMO was responding to media reports of a HSE briefing to Minister to Health Jennifer Carroll MacNeill, suggesting consultant weekend work in three regions of the country was still too low.

Prof Mick Molloy, Chair of the Consultants’ Committee of the IMO, said: “The reality of this situation is that every weekend, consultants up and down the country are working on call, carrying out ward rounds, reviewing and discharging patients, and responding to emergencies. This is in addition to working their core hours on a Monday to Friday. This work is critical to the functioning of our hospitals but is often absent from discussions about consultant availability and weekend working.

“Rostering consultants for core hours on a Saturday means that they must take another day off during the week or this additional work day to be classed as overtime which is not financially effective in the current constraints. In order for weekend core hour rostering and extended day core hour rostering to be effective, a whole of hospital approach is required. Using a consultant’s core hours for an out patient clinic on a Saturday, rather than inpatient work on a Monday, is a poor use of resources.

“In a situation where a consultant can have a full team, services and infrastructure available on a Monday, but not on a Saturday, it does not make sense to roster the consultant on a Saturday as there is less productivity. This is why hospitals are in some cases slower to roster consultants on a Saturday. The public-only consultants’ contract allows such rostering but there is no recognition of the additional staff required to make a comprehensive six-day health service a practical reality.”
 
He added: “The IMO supports any move that will facilitate better and more accessible care for patients throughout the week, but it is a fallacy to think this can happen without firstly having the correct numbers of consultant and healthcare staffing in place.”

He noted that the Department of Health’s own taskforce has stated that Ireland needs to have 110 consultants per 100,000 population – in terms of whole-time equivalents we are currently at 87.6 per 100,000.

“These figures show the scale of the challenge that faces the health system. We cannot click our fingers and expect meaningful change when the entire health system – not just consultants – is still set up for weekday working. Those consultants who work weekends will be off midweek with no cover given our lack of doctors.

“So, in theory we could plug the gap on Saturdays but then face huge difficulties on Mondays which is improving neither productivity nor services, and is a classic case of robbing Peter to pay Paul.

“All of this is against a backdrop of a recruitment freeze, and too few beds in our hospitals. The Government needs to take responsibility for its own decisions. The IMO supports the idea of a fully functioning seven-day health service, but for that to happen it needs to be properly resourced and staffed. A seven-day health service cannot be delivered simply by redistributing an already understaffed consultant workforce.”