David Cullinane (Waterford, Sinn Fein) | Oireachtas source

One of the pieces of advice I was given by HSE professionals who work in this area in the part of the country in which I live is that staff resources, be it in the areas of speech and language therapy, occupational therapy and child psychology, are not actually based on need. For example, there are no baseline staff numbers based on need; therefore, there is no stipulation that we need X number of child psychologists per X number of children in need. It is all based on existing staff posts, which is why we have a problem in some parts of the country. In Waterford there are 2.6 child psychologist posts. Is that part of the problem? The professionals are telling me that, in other areas of the mental health service, this is not the case and that the numbers are based on baseline need. In these areas, however, it is not.