How many intern posts there are, and who decides
The HSE approved 915 intern posts for 2026, an increase of approximately 4 per cent compared to 2025. Intern training networks negotiate posts within regional staffing budgets. Those negotiations can affect when the preference list is ready.
Checked on 23 August 2026. Sourced to Medical Independent, 27 July 2026, and to this site's own post data.
2026 intake
Approved and listed posts
The HSE's figure is 915 approved posts. The published preference lists contain 914 — 866 standard track and 48 academic track. Against the 877 listed for 2025, that is a rise of 4.2 per cent, where the HSE said approximately 4 per cent.
915
Approved by the HSE
914
In the published lists
4.2%
Up on 2025
The approved total and the published lists differ by one post. No published explanation was found at the last review.
All six health regions increased their intern post numbers compared with last year. Which regions gained how much is not published. What changed this year breaks the movement down post by post, including where the new posts landed.
Who runs what
Responsibility is shared between the HSE, Medical Council and medical schools. The table sets out who funds posts, recruits interns and oversees training.
| Body | What it does |
|---|---|
| Medical CouncilStatutory | Quality assures intern training. |
| Health Service ExecutiveHSEStatutory | Facilitates intern training, and recruits and employs interns. Under its statutory function it also determines how many training posts are required each year. |
| Medical schools | Deliver intern training through the six intern training networks, under service level agreements with the HSE. |
| National Doctors Training and PlanningNDTP | The HSE unit that plans and oversees training posts, and is advised of regional decisions on intern numbers. |
| National Recruitment ServiceNRS | Runs the application itself: the online stage, post preference selection, and offers. |
| Medical Intern BoardMIB | Oversight forum for the intern year. Its minutes record how post numbers are set, and it considered escalating the 2026 process to senior officials in the Department of Health and the HSE. |
The HSE and the Medical Council have both described the governance of the intern year as fragmented. Both have said it affected their ability to carry out their statutory roles efficiently. That statement is the reason the agency below exists as a project at all.
Health regions and training networks
Six health regions and six intern training networks is a coincidence of number, not a mapping. The regions are led by Regional Executive Officers and hold the budget. The networks are anchored to the medical schools and hold the training. In 2026 the money was decided in one structure and the posts were counted in the other.
Health regions
- HSE Dublin and North East
- HSE Dublin and Midlands
- HSE Dublin and South East
- HSE Mid West
- HSE South West
- HSE West and North West
Intern training networks
- Dublin/Northeast (RCSI)
- Dublin/Mid-Leinster (UCD)
- Dublin/Southeast (TCD)
- Mid-West (UL)
- South (UCC)
- West/Northwest (UG)
Every hospital in the match sits inside one of those networks. Browse them by network.
How 2026 posts were agreed
The letter of determination gave each regional health authority a whole-time equivalent limit and a budget, and left the split to local decision. It did not specify a number of intern posts, or of any other grade.
- 1The letter of determination issuesRegions receive a WTE ceiling and a budget. No grade is named in it, interns included, so no intern number exists at national level at this point.
- 2Networks negotiate with their regionEach intern training network has to make its case to its Regional Executive Officer for a share of that ceiling. By the February 2026 board meeting, NDTP had been advised that the University of Limerick and Trinity College Dublin networks had received an uplift on REO instruction.
- 3Recruitment waitsThe National Recruitment Service delayed the post preference stage to accommodate those negotiations. It could not wait indefinitely: the minutes record that with students' final exam dates in view, NRS could only hold off until mid-March.
- 4The list appears, and preferences openFor 2026 the formal preference windows ran to 30 March for the academic track and 13 April for the standard track, with offers the week of 25 May.
Different accounts of the recruitment timing
The board's minutes describe the 2026 process as unsatisfactory, record that NRS delayed the post preference stage, and say the process needs review with data gathered to support a case for change in the 2027 estimates.
The HSE's statement says the recruitment process proceeded in line with the established annual timeline, and the intern year commenced as scheduled in July.
Both can be true. A stage can slip inside a process that still lands on its published dates. What matters if you are applying is that the delay happened upstream of the dates you see, not in them.
Nothing published says the mechanism has changed. The board's own position, recorded in the minutes, is that the 2026 process should be reviewed and a case for change made in the 2027 estimates process.
The national intern training agency
It is the central component of a project to strengthen the governance, quality management and ongoing development of the intern year.
The HSE says it is engaging with the Medical Council to progress the project. A Medical Council-commissioned implementation group is working through the governance, legal structure and operational model.
Subject to the outcome of that implementation process and the availability of funding, the HSE says it is anticipated the agency will be established during 2027.
Confirmed plans
- It comes out of both bodies calling the current governance fragmented.
- An implementation group commissioned by the Medical Council is settling its governance, legal structure and operating model.
- The HSE is engaging with the Council on it.
Details still to be agreed
- Whether it takes over the Medical Council's quality assurance role, the HSE's employment and recruitment role, the service level agreements with the medical schools, or some combination.
- Whether the six networks survive it in their present form.
- Whether it changes who sets the number of posts, which is the part that decides how many people get in.
- Whether the funding is in place.
For applicants
The post list is not fixed early.
The number you will rank against is assembled region by region after the budget lands. In 2026 that pushed the preference stage back, and the mechanism that caused it has not been reported as changed.
Growth is real but regional.
Every health region increased its intern numbers for 2026. That does not mean your network grew, or grew evenly, and two networks are named in the minutes as having secured uplift where others are not mentioned.
Next year’s total is not yet confirmed.
The HSE determines posts annually, and says additional posts depend on funding and on training capacity in the regions. Until the lists appear, any number circulating for the next cycle is an estimate.
The governance is about to move.
If the agency is established as anticipated, the bodies you deal with may not be the ones described here. The recruitment route through NRS is the part least likely to change first.
The dates themselves, and what happens at each stage, are on the FAQ. What happens to the cohort after the intern year is on getting a job after the intern year.
Common questions
How many intern posts are there in Ireland?
The HSE approved 915 intern posts for 2026, an increase of approximately 4 per cent compared to 2025. The published preference lists for the same cycle hold 914 posts, 866 standard track and 48 academic track, which is 4.2 per cent up on the 877 listed the year before. The two counts differ by one post.
Who decides how many intern posts there are?
The HSE, under a statutory function to determine the number of training posts required each year. In practice the letter of determination gives each health region a whole-time equivalent limit and a budget without naming intern posts, and each intern training network then makes its case to its Regional Executive Officer for a share of it. Additional posts depend on funding and on training capacity in the regions.
What is the national intern training agency?
A body being planned to take on the governance, quality management and ongoing development of the intern year, which the HSE and the Medical Council have both described as fragmented. A Medical Council-commissioned implementation group is working on its governance, legal structure and operational model. Subject to that process and to funding, the HSE says it is anticipated the agency will be established during 2027.
Why did intern post preferences open late in 2026?
The National Recruitment Service held the post preference stage while the intern training networks negotiated their share of the regional budgets. Board minutes record that with students' final exam dates in view it could only hold off until mid-March. The HSE's own position is that recruitment ran in line with the established annual timeline.
Are the six health regions the same as the six intern training networks?
No. The six HSE health regions are led by Regional Executive Officers and hold the budget. The six intern training networks are anchored to the medical schools and deliver the training under service level agreements with the HSE. Both happen to number six; they are not the same six and they do not map onto each other.
What could not be verified
- The primary documents. The Medical Intern Board minutes were obtained under Freedom of Information by the Medical Independent and are quoted from that reporting, not read directly.
- The one-post difference between the 915 approved and the 914 in the published preference lists.
- The approved number of intern posts for 2027, which is not published.
- The per-region and per-network breakdown of the 2026 uplift. Two networks are named in the minutes; the distribution of the remaining increase is not published.
- Whether the letter of determination mechanism has changed for the 2027 estimates, which the board said it would seek.
- The Medical Intern Board's terms of reference and membership.
- Which responsibilities the agency will take over, and whether its funding is secured.
The 2026 account here rests on one piece of reporting: Catherine Reilly, Medical Independent, 27 July 2026. An HSE statement given to the outlet, and Medical Intern Board minutes from February 2026 released under Freedom of Information. Tell me if a figure here has moved.