Anne Rabbitte (Galway East, Fianna Fail)
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I thank Deputy Dillon. It is important to acknowledge the work that CHO 2 does. The Deputy and I live in CHO 2. That is Galway, Mayo and Roscommon, and under the lead of Mr. John Fitzmaurice and Ms Breda Crehan-Roche, they have done phenomenal work. The number there in June of 2020 was 100 and as of November, the number has been brought back to 55. That is a commitment and a demonstration of the HSE's staff but also the section 38 and section 39 organisations that they have worked closely with.

I already said that if the HSE disability team can get the block funding to recruit in block the third post that is required, it would mean that we would have everybody in place at the beginning of the year in quarter 1 as opposed to looking at recruitment going on for those 100 therapist posts that would lead us to having it finished by the time we would arrive at the next budget. I would like to see the recruitment start now and fill them out.

Of the 91 network disability teams, of which there are nine in CHO 2 to be delivered between the three counties, from what I can gather right across the country, we are down to the last seven team lead posts being filled. A lot of positive work has been done.

However, we have an issue in relation to unmet needs. While I might be meeting the Minister of State, Deputy Madigan, tomorrow, I am also meeting the Minister for Further and Higher Education, Research, Innovation and Science, Deputy Harris, with a focus on the CAO offers perhaps providing additional availability to help address some of my unmet need in the disability sector. I refer to occupational therapists, OTs, physiotherapists, and speech and language therapists. Tusla will be recruiting for social care. I need to recruit for social care. The Minister of State, Deputy Madigan, will also be recruiting as part of her school inclusion model for therapists in the schools. We need to accelerate and make more posts available so that we do not have a retention crisis or a recruitment crisis. The funding is there. We now need to match the funding with the people. That is a challenge.