New figures reveal hospital consultant hiring crisis

No suitable applicants for one quarter of consultant posts in 2015

There has been a shortage of consultant applying for hospital jobs in the last year Pic: iStock

One in four consultant posts advertised last year failed to attract a single suitable applicant, new figures show.

A total of 148 consultant posts in HSE-run hospitals and facilities were advertised in 2015, according to official figures.

There were no applicants for 20 posts advertised, while there were no suitable applicants for a further 14 posts, according to figures obtained by this newspaper.

In addition, there were five competitions where the only applicant ...