Catherine Murphy (Kildare North, Social Democrats) | Oireachtas source

I will expand a little on the questions that Deputy O'Connell has asked. In the reviews, the HSE will be looking at the location, the components of primary care needs in an area, and so on. This is absolutely the way to go. We want to see a successful model around the country. Some of the shortcomings, for example, would be retention of staff. Would that be the kind of thing that would be part of the review? I went along to my own CHO area. It had a briefing for Oireachtas Members that was very useful and addressed a range of areas. I asked a question about an area that keeps cropping up in the personal experience of some of my constituents. They get an appointment and then there is an interruption in the therapy service. It is often maternity leave since a large number of women are employed in that area of healthcare and they absolutely have to be supported in the maternity leave that they take. They do not want to come back to long lists and such. The functioning of these primary care centres has to take that into account too. Is that an aspect that the HSE will look at? I understand that, at any given time, one third of therapists are on maternity leave, which is a very high number. That goes with the territory when one has a cohort of workers with that age profile.