Michael Moynihan (Cork North West, Fianna Fail) | Oireachtas source

A number of things have come out of this session. Our guests have talked about training and attracting more occupational therapists. They spoke about the effect an additional 50 occupational therapists would have. Occupational therapists often start in the public sector before moving to private practice. It is rare for people to start in private practice and then go into the public sector later in their career. More often, they come out of the public sector and set up their own practices. There is a considerable need for occupational therapists. What is the hope? We need more occupational therapists and physiotherapists. We need occupational therapists and speech and language therapists in particular. How are we going to try to ensure more professionals come into the system in the coming years? There are greater challenges coming into the services nearly every day. More people are looking for occupational therapy and speech and language therapy.

A physiotherapist contacted me about getting additional physiotherapists into a practice. There was an issue in respect of registration in the summer. Was there a delay in the State's registration of people who qualified as physiotherapists or occupational therapists? There was a blockage in the system that meant those people were not receiving their registration to allow them to go into either private or public practice.

There is an old issue that goes back many years to when I was chair of the Committee on Education. There is a dilemma for people with disabilities, particularly those of a school-going age, in that disability seems to fall between the Departments of Education and Health. That issue is ongoing. I hope the move to the Department of Children, Equality, Disability, Integration and Youth will make a difference.

The prescribing of antipsychotic drugs for people who do not need them was mentioned and we have significant challenges in that regard.

We also spoke about the legal obligation on the State. What is needed from an Oireachtas point of view to ensure a person is legally entitled to an assessment and to services? What are the issues in that regard? Our guests might address some of those issues for me. Those were some of the matters that came up in the past couple of hours. Does Dr. Lynch want to come in?