Almost a quarter of doctors have said they are working more than 48 hours a week, according to a Medical Council report.
The Medical Workforce Intelligence Report 2024 found doctors working in surgery, obstetrics and gynaecology were most likely to work over 48 hours a week.
Around 45% of those who self-reported to work over 48 hours said they were working in direct patient care.
The report also said around one quarter, 26.1%, of doctors reported experiencing difficulty providing a patient with sufficient care at least once a week or more, while over one-third, 33.6%, reported never experiencing difficulty.
Almost three-quarters, 73.0%, said "pressure on workloads" was the greatest barrier to providing a patient with sufficient care at least once a week or more.
The report found there were 20,962 clinically active doctors working in the State in 2024 and said 78.8% of doctors retained their place on the Medical Council Register last year.
It said the mean age of doctors was 43.7 years old and over 20% were 55 and older.
Over 11,000 of doctors in the State were male (52.8%) and over 9,900 were female (47.2%).
Almost half of doctors worked in either general practice (25.9%) and medicine (23.4%).
The third largest discipline was surgery, which the report said represented 11.9% of clinically active doctors.
Almost 8,990 doctors were based in Dublin, representing 42.9% of the total number, and just 34 doctors in Leitrim, representing 0.2% of the total number.
The report found that 27.8% of doctors in the State have an "international basic medical qualification" from outside Ireland, the EU and the UK.
This is up from 25.7% in 2023 and 23.3% in 2022.
It said almost 40% of doctors with an international qualification received it from Pakistan and 21.3% have a qualification from Sudan.
Commenting on the report, CEO of the Medical Council Dr Maria O’Kane said it has seen a "phenomenal increase" in the number of doctors joining the Medical Council Register in recent years.
However, she added: "Despite there being over 30,000 doctors on the register at the end of 2024, our research today shows that only 20,692 doctors report being clinically active in Ireland in the same year."
Dr O’Kane said last month's report on General Practice in Ireland "aligns strongly" with the Medical Council’s data and it "shares the same views on the urgent need for strategic, sustainable investment in training, recruitment, and retention – for GPs and other doctors alike".
