Hildegarde Naughton (Galway West, Fine Gael) | Oireachtas source

I thank the Deputy for his question. We have a neurorehabilitation strategy and that is the development of neurorehabilitation services to improve inpatient outcomes by providing safe, high-quality, person-centred, neurorehabilitation at the lowest appropriate level of complexity. That straddles acute hospitals and primary care, as well as specialist community-based disability services. We have seen consistent funding in the last few years being provided to advance the roll-out of this strategy and the Department of Children, Disability and Equality, as well as the Department of Health, aim to jointly continue this important work to ensure there is a fully integrated service available to those who need it. As part of that strategy, the HSE is in the process of expanding the number of community neurorehabilitation teams across the country. The current position is that there are four new teams that have been recruited. They will be operational this year. This will add 48 specialist posts to community rehabilitation and approximately half of these posts are already in place, with the rest recruited and awaiting an imminent start date. The locations of the CNRT teams are: Dublin South and Wicklow; Dublin South West, South City and West; Kildare West Wicklow; and Galway, Roscommon and Mayo. From my engagement with many of these groups and people who have an acquired brain injury, I know the importance of these. People might have gone to Dún Laoghaire and had their intensive engagement there, which was very positive but the call is for community-based services and that is the importance of the roll-out of these hubs right across the country.