AI and Health Professionals in Ireland: What Regulators Have Said

If you are a nurse, midwife, doctor or other registered health professional in Ireland, or you employ them, the obvious question is whether your regulator has said anything about using AI. This guide looks at AI guidance for nurses, doctors and registrants in Ireland by reading what the regulators and HIQA have published on their own websites. The short version is that the picture is uneven: the Medical Council has a position statement, the Nursing and Midwifery Board of Ireland (NMBI) has an explanatory note on AI in its current Code, and on the CORU and Pharmaceutical Society of Ireland (PSI) pages we read we found no AI guidance. We say clearly below which is which. If you also want to understand the continuing-learning side, see our guides to NMBI CPD requirements and Medical Council CPD categories.

Medical Council: a position statement on AI

The Medical Council has a page titled as a position statement on artificial intelligence. It shows no issue date, refers to the 9th edition of its Guide to Professional Conduct and Ethics (2024), and says the statement will be periodically reviewed. It describes itself as principle-based, to be read with the Guide and with government AI guidelines and frameworks. The points it makes include:

• Responsibility stays with the doctor. The statement says doctors ultimately remain responsible for their clinical decisions. AI should support clinical decision-making, not replace it, and doctors must scrutinise and interpret AI recommendations.
• Patients should be told. It says patients should be informed when AI tools are used in the diagnosis, treatment and delivery of their care. The level of detail should be proportionate; it gives the example that a doctor using AI-assisted image interpretation would not need to explain the software's technical workings, while using AI to record a consultation would need more explanation about how personal data is collected and used. It uses the word "informed", not "consent".
• Confidentiality and public tools. It says patient confidentiality and data integrity are paramount, that any AI use must comply with data protection legislation, and that if public generative AI software is used, personal information becomes public domain.
• Bias. The statement says ethical practice demands vigilance against bias and inequality, and that no patient should be disadvantaged or harmed by hidden bias in AI algorithms.
• Competence. Doctors should understand what AI can and cannot do and how the tools work, and continuing professional development should include AI literacy.

The Council has also published a briefing paper on AI in healthcare, dated June 2025. The paper says it was written to inform the Council on the use of AI in medicine in Ireland, and it proposes core principles for the responsible use of AI. We use the position statement, not the briefing paper, as the Council's stated view. The sections of the Guide to Professional Conduct and Ethics (9th edition, effective 1 January 2024) that we could read do not mention AI by name; they do cover telemedicine, electronic records, confidentiality and use of electronic messaging, and the position statement says it underpins the Guide's principle-based approach. We could not read the whole Guide, so we do not claim it never mentions AI.

NMBI: AI in the Code of Professional Conduct and Ethics

NMBI's web page for the Code says the current Code came into effect on 14 February 2025, replacing editions published in May 2021 and December 2014. It says the Code applies to care provided "whether in person, virtually or through other platforms". In the Code itself, the explanatory notes include an entry on artificial intelligence. In summary, it says AI is emerging in healthcare and could significantly change care, gives examples such as monitoring tools, tools that flag people at risk, treatment suggestions and administrative help, and states that practitioners must remain accountable for their own actions and omissions and should be cautious about the interpretation of AI recommendations.

Other parts of the Code are relevant to anyone using AI tools, even though they are not AI-specific. It says confidentiality covers all forms of record management, including physical and electronic data, and that records should be collected, stored and used according to data protection law. Accountability is one of its principles. We did not find a separate NMBI guidance document devoted to AI, but we could not search the whole of the NMBI website, so we say only that none came up in our searches.

CORU and PSI: what we found

CORU regulates a range of health and social care professions. The CORU home page and its guidance page that we read do not mention artificial intelligence. The guidance page lists Guidance for Registrants, Guidance for Employers, Open Disclosure and Regulatory Essentials, and the registrant guidance shown on the page concerns safe delegation to assistants. CORU's professional codes and the individual boards' standards may say more, but we did not find AI guidance on the pages we read and do not claim any exists or does not exist beyond that.

The PSI has published guidance for pharmacists on the use of digital and social media (the page shows no publication date; the file path indicates June 2024). The page does not mention AI or chatbots. The PSI Service Plan 2026 also does not mention artificial intelligence; it does refer to implementing the PSI ICT strategy and to emerging digital health initiatives. In other words, on the pages we read, neither CORU nor the PSI has said anything about AI.

HIQA and the national strategy: services, not registrants

HIQA's National Guidance for the Responsible and Safe Use of Artificial Intelligence in Health and Social Care Services (published 29 July 2026) is aimed at services and the staff who work in them. The announcement says it is built around four principles (accountability, a human rights-based approach, safety and wellbeing, and responsiveness) and covers governance, transparency and public engagement. We could not open the final document, so we cannot say what it tells individual staff. Our summary of the announcement is in HIQA's national guidance on AI in health and social care. The Department of Health's AI for Care strategy announcement refers to clear governance and clinical accountability, and the Minister is quoted on mandatory human oversight; the page shows no date.

What the sources have in common

Across the Medical Council statement, the NMBI Code and HIQA's announcement, three themes recur, without any of these bodies setting a technical rulebook for AI tools:

• Accountability does not transfer to the tool. The registrant remains responsible for their own decisions and omissions.
• Confidentiality and data protection still apply. That includes electronic records and, per the Medical Council, the risk of public generative AI tools.
• Openness with patients and service users. The Medical Council says patients should be informed when AI tools are used in their care.

A practical approach for registrants and employers

The following are our suggestions, not regulatory requirements.

• Read your own regulator's current page. Check the Medical Council, NMBI, CORU or PSI site directly before relying on this summary, as statements are updated and some are undated.
• Keep a simple note of AI tools you use at work and what they are used for, so you can explain your reasoning if asked.
• Do not paste identifiable patient information into public tools. The Medical Council statement is clear on the risk, and your employer's policy may be stricter.
• Treat AI output as input to your judgement. Review, correct and take responsibility for anything you use.
• Record learning. If you spend time learning about AI tools, note it in the way your regulator's professional competence scheme expects. The Medical Council says CPD should include AI literacy, but check the relevant scheme.
• Employers: give staff a clear local policy and approved tools, so registrants are not left to guess. In Dublin and elsewhere, services with agency or locum staff should brief them too.

What we could not confirm

We could not open the NMBI home page or search function, the full Medical Council Guide, or HIQA's final guidance document. We did not read CORU's individual professional codes or the PSI's downloadable digital guidance. We found no AI-specific statement from CORU or the PSI on the pages above. Treat this guide as a snapshot of what we read and check each regulator's website for updates.

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Frequently asked questions

Has the Medical Council said anything about doctors using AI?

Yes. It has a position statement on AI that says doctors remain responsible for clinical decisions, that patients should be informed when AI tools are used in their care, and that public generative AI can make personal information public. The page shows no issue date.

Does the NMBI Code mention artificial intelligence?

The current Code, in effect from 14 February 2025, has an explanatory note on AI that says practitioners should be cautious about interpreting AI recommendations and remain accountable for their actions and omissions.

Have CORU or the PSI issued AI guidance?

Not on the pages we read. Their pages that we opened do not mention AI, but we did not read every document on their sites, so check directly.

Is HIQA's AI guidance binding on individual nurses and doctors?

The announcement describes the guidance as intended for use by all services providing health and social care in Ireland, and as aiming to promote awareness and build good practice. It does not describe it as a registrant rule. Read the guidance itself for its exact status.

Where regulators have spoken, they have kept to familiar ground: accountability, confidentiality and honesty with patients. Where they have not, the safest course is to apply those same principles and keep watching their websites.