Keira Keogh (Mayo, Fine Gael)

I have five more questions and six minutes. I might ask them and witnesses can answer them in varying degrees. Some might require a short answer and some will have us here all day.

On recruitment of speech and language therapists and occupational therapists, I was speaking with one speech and language therapist who is on the west coast, in Mayo. She would love to work for the HSE but she talked about infrequent opportunities to interview for the panel. She is in private practice at the moment and so she was given one day where she could interview. She would have had to cancel therapies, try to get a babysitter etc. She was not given an online option. She missed that panel interview, and another one will not come up for a while. That is her present experience. I ask the witnesses to speak to that.

We have not talked about respite services and waiting lists. Maybe we could get an overview of that.

A lot of day services for adults with disabilities are carried out by section 39 workers. My background is in behavioural consultancies, so I have been in a variety of these centres. I see massive differences as to whether there is a curriculum or a schedule. I wonder what kind of input do we give with regards to that.

Mr. Gloster said he would love to talk more about moving people from nursing homes when it is an inappropriate setting for people with disabilities. I would love to hear about that.

Augmentative and alternative communication, AAC, devices have been transformative for many of my clients in the last five years. My experience before I was elected was that some clients' AAC devices, which they got two or three years ago, are now cracking or the batteries are dying. There are kids who are fully reliant on these AAC devices as their fluent voice. They cannot wait two days for a replacement. When the batteries get weak they need mobile chargers. Is there now a follow-up plan for people who have AAC devices for two or three years, which, naturally, are going to fall out?