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

I thank the Deputy for her question. She raised the issue of recruitment. The current model is not working and has to change. At a recent meeting, the Minister, Deputy O'Gorman, and I met the national team from the HSE, along with Paul Reid. We agreed that a roadmap would be put in place to ensure that we could attract more people in the sector. While the plan has not been finalised by any manner or means, I will provide some examples. The Departments of Health and Children, Equality, Disability, Integration and Youth and the HSE agreed to come together and compile the report together. It is approximately four weeks since we had that meeting. We also had a meeting with the Taoiseach at which the Minister for Education, Deputy Foley, and the Minister of State, Deputy Madigan, were present

As for the plan, the HSE currently does not have a pay grade for behavioural therapists. We are producing them but we are not recruiting them. One of the first requests was the HSE put in place a pay structure for behavioural therapists. Second, we found we did not have occupational, physical or speech and language therapists on the critical skills list. We have written to those responsible for it and those professions are now on it.

We also have a problem with recruiting students who have recently finished college. They have to wait for CORU and everything else to come through. We know what the process is regarding that. It is not time sensitive to our needs. We have put forward a proposal that we recruit directly from colleges and while doing so, we would put people on an assistant level until CORU applications come through. The Minister, Deputy Harris, has announced an extra allocation of posts but we know it will take a while for that to come through. It is good to have it in the mix and it is welcome that the need for therapists has been acknowledged. Another piece we have added relates to people who trained in the UK or elsewhere abroad. If they come home and are missing a component of what is required, we will recruit them and the person can meet the need for that specific component while training in service. On the need to return therapists to special schools and the validation of therapists in new schools, such as Rochestown and Carrigaline and a number of schools in Dublin which do not have any therapists on staff, they will be validated into the programme. The last piece we need to deal with in terms of recruitment is work experience for therapists who are in training. At the moment, we do not have a proper number of people in clinical posts. There are only 70% in post, which means that we have a gap of 30% in the number of therapists required on our teams. If we could increase the figure to 90%, we could provide training on the job. That does not happen at the moment in any of the teams. It is critical that trainee therapists get the opportunity to train on teams.

I could not agree more with the Deputy on CAMHS. There needs to be a national access policy. It has to work in a number of ways. It has to be integrated into primary care, mental health and disability services. At certain times, the need within a diagnosis might change. If the preliminary diagnosis is autism, but a child now needs to be reassessed for attention deficit hyperactivity disorder, ADHD, and needs to have integrated access, that must be universal across all disciplines. I spoke the Minister for Health, Deputy Stephen Donnelly, and the Minister of State, Deputy Mary Butler, about the need for better integrated access when it comes to autism and access to services only last week.

Respite in the Cavan-Monaghan area is currently under discussion. In one count,y children only get respite every second week and there is no designated respite house. I am discussing that with the local community healthcare organisation, CHO, manager as we speak.