Ms Lorraine Dempsey:

They simply would not be available to do it. Many of them have been redeployed to Covid-specific work. We are waiting for the HSE to engage in a process of getting them back into their original posts. I do not think their involvement in July provision would necessarily be feasible. The issues around childcare, being paid late in the autumn, being put into a higher tax bracket and all the other disincentives that exist would just be extended to another group of people. That is not to say that their involvement would not be advantageous. There is a related issue, namely, that there is already a shortage of all the categories of worker the Chairman mentioned. The irony of tomorrow being the second anniversary of my sitting in one of these committee rooms and raising issues around the provision of therapy and educational supports to children is not lost on me. At the time, no new children's disability network team had been established since 2014. Two years later, there still has been no such new team formed.

We have a severe shortage of the people the Chairman refers to and we require heavy investment to provide that scaffolding around parents, now moreso than ever. The Chairman touched on the fact that he has a new baby and how one appreciates watching one's child develop. When one becomes a parent of a child with special needs any minor achievement is massive and I cannot overstate that. Parents have had to deal with much emotional upset over the past couple of months, seeing children not being able to sleep, destroying their houses or assaulting siblings and not through any fault of their child but arising out of the frustrations and lack of supports. The lack of access to school and therapists over the past three months has been catastrophic and I cannot state that enough.