Staff in the health services here are under a lot of pressure

All 1,500 nurses who graduate this year will be offered a permanent and pensionable job in hospitals and other areas of the health service.

An internal memo was sent by HSE chiefs to ­managers across the ­country yesterday, giving them ­unprecedented ­permission to offer the ­permanent posts to all ­graduating nurses in another desperate measure to ­alleviate emergency department ­overcrowding.

A shortage of ­nurses ­threatens to disrupt the ­opening of 300 extra hospital beds from November - one of the key measures being put in place to ease the trolley crisis as hospitals face into escalating winter pressures.

Not all nurses are ­expected to take up the offer, but it will come as a relief to ­hospitals, which currently have ­senior staff ­recruiting in the ­Philippines and interviewing via Skype.

It comes as negotiations on the health budget for 2016 reach their crunch stage, with signs that the final increase will be far off the "wish list" of €2bn sought by the HSE.

Irish Independent