Pádraig O'Sullivan (Cork North Central, Fianna Fail) | Oireachtas source

The Minister of State, Deputy Rabbitte, appeared before the committee earlier. We discussed recruitment for the provision of therapies and assessments of needs. We have spoken about how we can address that. There are people moving from the public sector into the private sector. There is undoubtedly a shortfall in the number of qualified therapists in a whole raft of different areas. What does AsIAm advocate in terms of how we can recruit the therapists we need? Thinking of my local area, around one in four posts remains unfilled. It has been like that since 2016 or 2017. In that period, the situation has not improved; it is proving more challenging to retain staff now. I ask Mr. Harris to address that issue. If he has time, I ask him to comment on the summer programme. I cannot expect Mr. Harris to be an expert in everything. It is great when we see headline figures such as the provision of €40 million for the programme. Like others, however, in my heart and soul I know that we will be lucky to draw down one third of that based on what last year was like. How do we maximise those opportunities? Should we be expanding the programme out to beyond teachers? Should care workers and different therapists in training be recruited? How does Mr. Harris see those vacancies in the summer programme being filled?