{"id":461270,"date":"2026-05-22T05:40:08","date_gmt":"2026-05-22T05:40:08","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/461270\/"},"modified":"2026-05-22T05:40:08","modified_gmt":"2026-05-22T05:40:08","slug":"report-finds-most-doctors-who-go-to-australia-return-to-ireland-to-train-and-work-the-irish-times","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/461270\/","title":{"rendered":"Report finds most doctors who go to Australia return to Ireland to train and work \u2013 The Irish Times"},"content":{"rendered":"<p class=\"c-paragraph paywall \">Sir, \u2013 Sin\u00e9ad O\u2019Sullivan\u2019s article reflects understandable public concern about doctors leaving <a href=\"https:\/\/www.irishtimes.com\/ireland\/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noreferrer nofollow noopener\" title=\"https:\/\/www.irishtimes.com\/ireland\/\">Ireland<\/a> after training (\u201c<a href=\"https:\/\/www.irishtimes.com\/opinion\/2026\/05\/13\/sinead-osullivan-people-in-ireland-want-to-know-where-our-money-goes-the-answer-is-depressing\/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noreferrer nofollow noopener\" title=\"https:\/\/www.irishtimes.com\/opinion\/2026\/05\/13\/sinead-osullivan-people-in-ireland-want-to-know-where-our-money-goes-the-answer-is-depressing\/\">People in Ireland want to know where our money goes. The answer is depressing<\/a>,\u201d May 13th). However, the National Doctors Training and Planning (NDTP) medical recruitment and retention report 2025, published earlier this month, shows that while many young doctors choose to work in <a href=\"https:\/\/www.irishtimes.com\/tags\/australia\/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noreferrer nofollow noopener\" title=\"https:\/\/www.irishtimes.com\/tags\/australia\/\">Australia<\/a> for one to two years, the vast majority return to train and work in Ireland. <\/p>\n<p class=\"c-paragraph paywall \">The report findings were that 60 per cent of interns do leave Ireland to work in Australia at the end of the intern year, but more than three quarters of those (77 per cent) return to speciality training in Ireland. <\/p>\n<p class=\"c-paragraph paywall \">This number increases to 87 per cent when looking specifically at Irish-trained doctors of Irish nationality. Furthermore, 80 per cent of doctors completing specialist training in Ireland between 2017 and 2021 were working in Ireland as consultants by 2025. For general practice, retention within the Irish healthcare system is more than 90 per cent. . <\/p>\n<p class=\"c-paragraph paywall \">Surveys shows that 90 per cent of doctors working in Ireland wish to remain working in Ireland long-term. It is common for doctors to travel abroad for experience and subspecialty training across all advanced healthcare systems. Irish doctors have always travelled to gain experience overseas, just as Irish healthcare relies on high quality internationally trained doctors. <\/p>\n<p class=\"c-paragraph paywall \">There are indeed challenges affecting retention, including housing costs, delayed access to permanent posts and the working environment. However, the evidence suggests that sustained investment in consultant posts, training pathways and working conditions improves retention.<\/p>\n<p class=\"c-paragraph paywall \">The challenge is therefore not preventing doctors from leaving Ireland, but ensuring that Ireland remains an attractive place for them to return to and build long-term careers. \u2013 Yours, etc,<\/p>\n<p class=\"c-paragraph paywall \">PROF ANTHONY O\u2019REGAN,<\/p>\n<p class=\"c-paragraph paywall \">Medical Director NDTP,<\/p>\n<p class=\"c-paragraph paywall \">Heuston South Quarter,<\/p>\n<p class=\"c-paragraph paywall \">Dublin 8.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Sir, \u2013 Sin\u00e9ad O\u2019Sullivan\u2019s article reflects understandable public concern about doctors leaving Ireland after training (\u201cPeople in Ireland&hellip;\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":17772,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[2],"tags":[986,61,60,43],"class_list":["post-461270","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-ireland","tag-australia","tag-ie","tag-ireland","tag-news"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/461270","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=461270"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/461270\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/17772"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=461270"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=461270"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=461270"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}