Ireland Nursing, questions from a Canadian RN

Silverdragon102, BSN · Oct 21, 2008

You will need to register with http://www.nursingboard.ie/en/homepage.aspx. Cost of living well you could look at supermarket online stores to give you an idea on costs, also check out other sorts of shops by checking out golden pages, Ireland's version of Yellow pages. Not sure how easy it will be to find a employer willing to assist with work permit so will have to contact local hospitals for that.

thegoose · Nov 5, 2008

Hi,

I recently went through the process of trying to get registered with the Irish nursing board. I am a Canadian trained nurse with expereince in ER from Ontario.

I started the application process last september 2007 as I was leaving for Ireland in January 2008. (I have chornicled my experience in annother few posts, if you click on my name you can find it, I think it's under "beacon hospital"- I was not the original poster)

There is lots of paperwork to get in order. Your current nursing licence and brith cert needs to be notarized by a lawyer (make sure if you're applying around the end of the year you also send your licence from the new year as soon as you get it) What happened to me that delayed the process was that I submitted everythign in 2007, yet it was assessed in 2008, therefore the licence I submitted was no longer current as they expire every year Dec. 31th

At anyrate, after everything is in place, your application waits in a pile for about 8-9 weeks to be assessed.

They say everyone is assessed on an individual basis, HOWEVER, anyone from Canada,US, Austrailia (basically non EU) your education will not be considered equivalent to thiers (even though it is) and you will have to arrange for your own 6 week adaptation period with an aproved hospital (they will send you a list) at this point, actually from the get go it's best to work with a recriuter KCR.ie is one alot of the hospitals used. In three monhts of working with them after I found out I needed a 6 week adaptation period, I got 1 interview, which I did not get the job for. (I dont' fault the agency for the lack of interviews)

There is currently a hireing embargo/freeze in the nursing sector. It is very difficult to get a nursing job, as to get one you need 6 weeks of supervised orientation just to get reccomened for licensure. The Irish nursing board is not particularly helpful, they do not do anything to assist you getting a placement. They told me I shoudl look into moving somwhere else (I was living in Dublin because my boyfriend was on scholarship to Trinity college) so moving was not an option for me, not sure if it would have really made a difference.

If I were you, I wouldn't go to Ireland. A friend of mine when to england where all interntational nurses have to take a 30 day course to obtain registration (after they do all the paperwork) this seems like a much more fair way to go about things, rather than having to secure your own 6 week adaptation period, where you probably won't get to work in your area of interest/specialty.

In May 2008 I gave up on trying to get my licence and just enjoyed my stay in Ireland. I'm back in Canada now, so if you have any more questions, I would be happy to answer them.

My advice would be to look elsewhere, even in the UK I understand it's difficult to find work unless you are in a specialty area like NICU etc.

Hope I was able to be of some help!

-C