Mr. John Connaghan:

For any child to wait longer than is necessary is a tragedy. Looking at some of the other services aside from the ones outlined by the Deputy today, clearly our position is not one we would want to readily accept. We should be doing better, particularly for children. It is important because of the stage of development they are at and the implications for later in life. We understand the gravity of the question the Deputy is asking.

There was some investment in this area in 2016 and 2017. I realise it is difficult to attract staff to certain locations. We need to do more in terms of providing cross-regional support, so if there is one CHO that is in trouble because it cannot attract and retain staff or where we do not have the right mix we must do more. Looking at the statistics here, it is 50% in CHO 4 but it is nothing in CHO 1 or CHO 2, for example. The question is what we can do to provide cross cover. That is the first issue. The Minister of State, Deputy Jim Daly, is due to meet officials soon and we will wait to see what action plan comes out of that. However, we accept that the numbers waiting for speech and language therapy services are high and that more must be done. We want to address the absolute resource in these areas as part of the Estimates process as we approach 2019.

With regard to the CHO 4 area, Cork and Kerry, an additional 13 posts were allocated in total. I do not have the up-to-date details regarding where we are in the recruitment cycle for those, but I can find out and forward that information to the Deputy.