Róisín Shortall (Dublin North West, Social Democrats) | Oireachtas source

I thank the witnesses for the presentation. I want to stick with the issue of neurological services. I want to tease through what has happened in recent years. Many thousands of people have neurological conditions in this country, such as Parkinson's disease, MS and epilepsy. Many of these conditions are extremely debilitating if they are not diagnosed and treated early. They can have major personal, social and economic implications for the country and specifically for the families involved. It is one of those situations where it does not make sense not to have early intervention for many reasons. It is yet another example of how things are not done properly in the health service. People scratch their heads and ask if this is a no-brainer why has it not been dealt with.

We know that in 2022 a total of 21 neurological nurse posts were funded. How is it that more than two years later there are still 12 vacancies out of the 21 posts that were funded? Whatever about when the word came out about the funding in 2022, why were these posts not all progressed then from early 2023? A number of them remain vacant. We know that because the go-ahead was delayed in 2023 to very late in the year the recruitment could not start because it was too late in the year. Now we are into 2024. When I tabled parliamentary questions in May, I was told these posts were impacted by the embargo, which was not the case. The Minister for Health in the Dáil established it was not the case and that they are exempted. How is it that posts which were approved and funded in 2022 are still not filled? Will Mr. Gloster explain this to us and to the many thousands of people impacted by what I regard as a serious failure on the part of the HSE?