A lead psychiatrist with the National Gender Service (NGS), which provides healthcare for transgender adults, has said its “very regrettable” decision to close waiting lists stems from lack of space and resources.
The NGS plans to close to new clients on March 1st, 2026.
Speaking on Prime Time on Thursday, Dr Paul Moran said about 2,500 people are on the waiting list.
Those who are on the list will be assessed, but that process could take years. As of last month, the average waiting time for assessment was 4½ years.
“Unfortunately we’re forced to do this because after six years of trying to get resources and to meet demands, we have come to a dead end,” Dr Moran said.
“We can’t keep adding more and more people to a waiting list that’s getting longer and with the current resources we have no capacity to meet this need.”
As the State’s only multidisciplinary clinical service for transgender healthcare, the NGS operates from a two-room prefab in the grounds of Dublin’s St Columcille’s Hospital in Loughlinstown.
Its team includes an endocrinologist, a psychiatrist, a psychologist, nurses, a social worker and an occupational therapist.
Describing the situation facing people on the service’s lengthy waiting list as “unconscionable”, Dr Moran said the NGS is looking for “a dedicated centre for the service, preferably a much more accommodating environment than we have in a small general hospital”.
This, he said, has not yet transpired due to the fact that project development with the Health Service Executive (HSE) has broken down “time and time again”.
However, Dr Moran told Prime Time’s Miriam O’Callaghan that the NGS remains “optimistic that a solution will be found”.
In response to questions about the NGS’s current model of care, labelled as “a failure” on Thursday by Sinn Féin’s health spokesman David Cullinane, Dr Moran said “it hasn’t collapsed, we are delivering a good service for the people we have been able to see”.
The system of transgender healthcare in Ireland came under fire earlier this month when Labour’s health spokeswoman Marie Sherlock told the Dáil that it is “consistently ranked as the worst in Europe”.
Asked about the impact of the closure of waiting lists on those seeking care, Dr Moran said it would “be upsetting for them” and “cause worry and stress”.
On Thursday morning, chair of the NGS’s clinical governance committee, Brian Cotter, issued a letter to health officials explaining the decision.
The letter was sent to Health Minister Jennifer Carroll MacNeill and HSE chief executive Bernard Gloster.