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

I thank the Senator. I will skip straight on to schools and will let the team answer some of the other questions. First, on why the HSE has failed to deliver on putting therapies back in to the schools, in 2021, PDS was being rolled out and therapists were coming out of the schools in Dublin. There was also the school of the deaf in Cork. The exact time was May. At that stage there was an extraction of 88 therapists out of schools around the country. I can remember putting a halt on it. The press release is there. Halt the removal of therapists. I was not long enough in the job to realise that "halt" did not mean halt because it continued in some cohorts around the country where the therapists continued to be removed. We got the funding, however, in June from the now Tánaiste, then Taoiseach, to ensure that the therapists went back into the schools. To be fair, in some schools on the east coast, they did go back in. I am thinking of Carmona as an example of where they did go back in. In 2021, we faced into budget 2022, and an additional 134 therapist posts were secured. It was solely secured that therapists would be back-filled, that is, recruited, filled and back-filled, back into education. It would be ring-fenced for special schools and within education. From there, the battle continued and continues. The most public of it all is in relation to the Cork schools where the therapists never went back in. It is not because the money was not allocated, because it was. A clear commitment was given to the then Taoiseach, Deputy Micheál Martin, that the therapists would go back in to the schools. That was a clear ask and a direction: not aligned to but "put in". Language is important here. It was not "aligning to" but "put in". That is where the funding was secured. It was 88 plus 125. That was then and to this day, I have continued to battle to ensure that therapists would be returned in. I had some success. I talk about the Wexford model where, under the leadership of Bernard Gloster and Grace Rothwell, the special school in Wexford was able to recruit the therapists and to work with the local CDNT, that is, they were able to have the conversation. The clinical governance was provided by the local CDNT. Unfortunately, we could never crack that nut in Cork. That is culture.

On whether I have considered the sign-on bonus, absolutely. I was delighted when I saw the Minster, Deputy Foley, looking at it. I have certainly raised my eyebrows as to why we could not do something similar. We do bonuses or we give relocation packages to the value of €4,300 to bring people back from abroad. That is the relocation package we pay. It would be ten times nicer if we did not have to do the relocation and we could just second them or capture them as they leave college.

On how the HSE can outsource to the private sector, first and foremost, I cannot stand over children not getting access to assessments. I have to beg, borrow or steal and do it wherever I can do it and with whoever is prepared to work with me. I would prefer if it was all within the public system. I would prefer if I was growing the public system and if the staff members were within it and could do both models at the one time, as Senator Clonan said, that is, to have intervention and assessment. That is the way it should be but when I cannot get that delivery or KPI, I am left with no choice but to ask my senior Ministers, the Minister, Deputy O'Gorman, the Tánaiste and the Taoiseach to ensure that funding is allocated so that the job can get done. It is not exactly how one would want. In every other element of the public sector, everybody wants to go to work in the different Departments. The only part of the public sector that nobody wants to work in is in my CDNTs.