Anne Rabbitte (Galway East, Fianna Fail) | Oireachtas source

The Senator is right regarding the point about therapists. I did not have the answer for Deputy Cairns and I do not have an answer for the Senator on what the turnover is like. In the past, we have not built in enough capacity to support the turnover. The reason we have turnover is because it is very stressful unless there are enough people on the teams to make it work. That is where the 100 posts last year and the 100 posts again this year come in. It will continue to be my ambition, within the budgetary negotiations, to ensure that our PDS is fully and properly laid out.

We also have to remember that a recruitment process is taking place in primary care as well. Not all access to speech and language therapy, occupational therapy, OT, or physiotherapy all falls within disability. There is an access provision within primary care as well. My question there is whether primary care managers are recruiting with their allocated budgets and if they are reconfiguring their teams the way I am reconfiguring mine. I am reconfiguring mine on the basis that primary care is working in tandem at this moment in time. I talked about coming in the front door of primary care, access to provision and the escalator. That only works if everybody is recruiting in the same way and working in the same pods together. That answers that.

That also answers the question about speech and language therapists and private practitioners. On private practices, we went right across the country to clear the assessment and needs issues under section 38 and section 39 of the Health Act. The private providers played a huge role in that. There will be a role for them to play if we want to clear a backlog, but at the same time I have a public purse that allows me to recruit. I want to recruit into those posts. Primary care has a public purse and we need to recruit into that. That is what we need to do and we need to fill those posts. I have 50 posts that will be filled before June and I will recruit again in June. The portal is set up for the recruitment process. All I need is more money to keep recruiting and I will keep doing that job. Needless to say, there is a budgetary constraint on that.

The issue of the primary care centre in Beechpark in Tallaght was raised. There is work ongoing because we do not have a primary care centre there at the moment. I do not have enough information to answer the question, but the whole plan is that disability is to be integrated as part and parcel of it. I will get Senator Seery Kearney an answer on that.