Ms Vickie Kirkpatrick:

This goes back to the issues of data and workforce planning. We do not know where the gaps are in terms of service delivery and lack of data means that we cannot make reliable projections. I referred earlier to the Bacon report from 2001 but there has been nothing as extensive done since then. That report made projections out to 2015. Many good things came out of the Bacon report, including the development of three more programmes for speech and language therapists which increased overall capacity in Ireland to enable us to meet the increased need for services at both paediatric and geriatric levels.

Some of the variation is related to workforce planning, retention difficulties as well as the time it takes to replace staff and to build up a team again. In some areas, staffing arrangements are in continuous flux. I also suspect that it is more difficult to recruit in some places than in others.