The HSE cannot employ a regulated health professional to practice in Ireland without appropriate registration. The relevant regulator is the authority for registration and recognition of qualifications. For several other health and social care professions, the Minister for Health is the competent authority.
If you have not completed the necessary, recognition or registration we recommend you do so as soon as possible as the process can take some time.
Where there is no professional body or statutory regulator, you can use NARIC’s foreign qualifications database to download a comparability statement. This compares an academic qualification to an Irish qualification of a similar type and level on the Irish National Framework of Qualifications (NFQ).
If the database does not list your qualification, you can apply for advice on the general academic recognition of their qualification.
Note:
- comparability statement only provides advice and is not a legal document
- qualification should be awarded by a nationally-recognised awarding body in your country of origin
- decisions on recognising a qualification for employment purposes is made by the individual employer
- decisions on recognising a professional qualification is made by the appropriate Irish authority for that profession
It is your responsibility to provide proof of registration with the relevant professional body or regulator, or qualification equivalence.
The relevant regulator is the authority for registration and recognition of qualifications.
The professional regulators are:
- (i) Social Worker,
- (ii) Dietician,
- (iii) Physiotherapist,
- (iv) Occupational Therapist,
- (v) Dispensing Optician,
- (vi) Radiographer
- (vii) Speech & Language Therapist,
- (viii) Medical Scientist,
- (ix) Podiatrist,
- (x) Social Care Worker
- (xi) Radiation Therapist
- (xii) Optometrist
For other professions the Minister for Health is the competent authority for several health and social care professions.
The Department of Health, through the Validation Unit (validation_unit@health.gov.ie), administers the process in respect of the following professions on behalf of the Minister. The assessment processes of the Directive 2005/36/EC on the Recognition of Professional Qualifications are also applied to qualifications, which are outside the Directive’s scope. That is non-EEA qualifications or EEA qualifications of non-EEA nationals.
Please go to the relevant link below for information on the application process for that profession:
