The HSE has spent over €22 million on agency nurses in the first six months of this year, according to the Irish Nurses and Midwives Organisation (INMO).

It is calling on the Department of Health to do something about the ‘alarming drop' in nursing and midwifery numbers, while agency costs appear to be increasing.

The most recent figures obtained by the INMO show that within the HSE, the expenditure on agency nursing from January until the end of June this year was €22,480,655.

"We have over the past number of weeks met a number of senior HSE managers who confirm that they are being refused sanction nationally to directly hire nurses due to budget constraints. This completely contradicts the HSE's stated position that there is no recruitment moratorium and that all qualifying nurses will be offered permanent posts this August," the organisation said.

It noted that vacancies are continuing to increase and there are now 270 fewer staff nurses in the public health system compared to December 2015. This is against a backdrop of increased public demand and the reconfiguration of some services, which in some cases, has led to increased bureaucracy.

"The lack of a workforce plan has never been as evident as it is currently. The idea that some of the 1,500 graduating nurses will potentially be forced, due to this HSE policy, to seek employment abroad again, despite the HSE spending excessively on agencies, is simply inexcusable," commented the INMO's director of industrial relations, Phil Ni Sheaghdha.

The INMO has called for an urgent meeting with HSE national directors and has also called on the Minister for Health, Simon Harris, to intervene.