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

It has navigated this very poorly. It has not put enough thought into it. While it is fantastic to have the role of assistant therapist, which I agree will play a pivotal role in supporting a finite resource of clinicians, when the role was put in, I was of a firm belief that the assistant therapist needs to not just be a generic title but an assistant therapist in occupational therapy, physiotherapy and speech and language, so they can work alongside the clinician who will write the programme. I am disappointed that it has been watered down too much for my liking to be a generic assistant therapist. I know the HSE is really trying to work with the national tertiary office in working with ETBs to stand up the roles of assistant therapists. In Cavan-Monaghan, we have quite a number of assistant therapist posts, but they are really going to older persons. We had the opportunity for assistant therapists in Cork, for occupational therapists, physiotherapists and speech and language therapists, with really good opportunities, but unfortunately they are swallowed up into the acute system. We are able to recruit and provide supervision for assistant therapists in acute and older persons' services, but we are struggling to find the mechanism to embed them in CDNTs.