Emer Currie (Fine Gael) | Oireachtas source

I apologise that this afternoon I had another committee meeting which was running at the same time. I have had to come in and out. I will watch back to see the contributions that I missed. This morning and this afternoon the contributions have been really impactful.

Earlier I listened to Mark Kenny speak and it was a joy to watch. I also had a bird's eye view of his mother, Ger, sitting beside him. It was pure joy watching her face as she watched him speak. For the parents we met this morning who probably had younger children to see the speakers today would have given them and other witnesses here great hope and optimism. As Ms Ger Kenny has done with her lovely son to deliver that optimism, we need to mimic that and make that happen. That is our goal. Why can we not achieve it? If organisations across the country can hire therapists, why can the HSE not do so?

I want to speak to the person at the back who was talking about health professionals. I have friends, colleagues and champions in my community who say exactly the same thing. They want to work in CAMHS. They want to work as psychologists, speech and language therapists and occupational therapists, but the HSE makes it so hard even to get recruited never mind to work. It even makes it hard to train. Clinical psychologists get a proportion of their fees paid and get paid for their placements, but educational psychologists do not. This year a cohort of them will have access to a certain amount of support. It is not good enough. It should be equitable. We ask ourselves why we do not have enough educational psychologists then we find out that it costs €45,000 in some cases to become a qualified psychologist. Who can afford that? Earlier I made the point that this is intersectional. Probably the hardest nut to crack will be the quagmire that is the HSE. I do not underestimate the scale of that.

I wanted to be in this room to be able to stand up and advocate for people. It is not for everybody. I greatly admire people who never saw themselves as advocates coming into this House, being in these surroundings, probably being intimidated by these surroundings and having to advocate for their child, their family or themselves. All the witnesses are amazing. I recognise that and thank them for all the preparation that went into today.

My final thanks are for the committee. I am not a member of the committee. I thank the Chair whom I know personally. I know how much he has personally invested into this. I sometimes text him at 9 p.m., 10 p.m. or 11 p.m. with questions and he comes back to me. I am sure the other committees are the same. As the other politicians have said, this should be one of the most important reports that is worked on in this mandate. I think the Chair from the bottom of my heart for his contribution to that.