Anne Rabbitte (Galway East, Fianna Fail)
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I thank Deputy Tully for her comments. The census was conducted last October and some recruitment has taken place since, but I also secured last October an additional 180 posts which are added on to that, so the actual figure is 714 unfilled posts, to put that in context.

The Deputy is right in regard to the CORU piece and this is something I and my team have taken up directly with CORU. There have been very good conversations between myself, Mr. O'Regan and his team around how we should look at the various people who are trained abroad. Mr. Reid’s opening statement referred to how we should look at that. In a particular CHO area, Edel Quinn in Donegal always talks about the speech and language therapists being trained in Derry yet, at the same time, they cannot come and work on her teams because there is a module or two that is missing. We need to see how we can bring those speech and language therapists to work on our teams while squaring it, or perhaps making thecircle a little bit rounder, so they can be part of our teams while also meeting the requirements of CORU. That is just an example of it. If we have that agile approach, we could shorten that gap an awful lot quicker because the three largest areas that we are trying to recruit into are occupational therapy, speech and language therapy and physiotherapy To be honest with the Deputy, it is very difficult to fill those posts, not just in disability but in primary care as well. We have to find an alternative.

The other piece where I have seen that has worked very well within mental health – Ms Yvonne O'Neill was involved in this - concerned the assistant psychologist posts. We need to see that come across to the disability side as well in regard to recruiting assistant psychologists. Creating different pathways and a pathway for employment and career opportunities within disability is not just all about staff seniority in that there have to be other mechanisms and entry points. At the moment, we cannot provide the opportunity for students training in third level colleges to be on any of our teams due to the clinical risk because our teams are not full. Therefore, we cannot even give the opportunity for young people to see what it is like to work within disability because we do not have a proper clinical opportunity currently and we cannot achieve that until we fill out our teams. If that was available, there would be another entry point in third year and fourth year to show what disability would be like. Those are the opportunities and that is the roadmap which, since 11 May, the HSE and I are working on to try to find how we can actually work this out. It is not just one level; it is not one-size-fits-all. We need to look at a multitude of areas in order to attract and retain staff. I also believe that until such time as we get to the space where we can give that opportunity to have experience of working with persons within disability services, it will never be that attractive, and we do not have that opportunity in regard to entry points at the moment.

Mr. O’Regan touched on the disability action plan. That is with me at present and we are in the final stages of engaging with the Department of Public Expenditure and Reform on it. It is a huge document overall and it is a ten-year plan. I am going to bite it off in three-year bites so it can be measurable and deliverable. That is the most important thing. Hopefully, that will help to build in the capacity in regard to what we are looking to achieve within it, but also in regard to building capacity in respite and residential services, which is very important.

Deputy Murnane O'Connor referred to respite in her CHO area. It is important to realise that respite funding was provided for her area and the house is there. They have gone to recruit twice for the person in charge – or PIC, as it is called - and although the contract has been awarded and everything else, they cannot recruit that PIC. It is sitting there since before Christmas and we want to open that service. I have done my job and the HSE has operationalised it, but we cannot recruit because that last link is the person in charge. That is where the Deputy will find an issue in her area. At the same time, €40,000 for overnight respite was also put in to support some of the families. The Deputy also talked about the teams in her areas and I was fortunate last week to meet with people in CHO 5.

While we are talking about section 38 and 39 organisations, I am informed that documents will go to Cabinet next week to address some parts of this. I am not saying it is all disability but it is looking at section 39s, so that conversation is there and I have had this conversation with the Minister, Deputy McGrath. We need to have that conversation around making it a level playing field. If someone is in the canteen of a PDS team, it will have HSE, section 38 and section 39 staff. We knew at the start that this was always going to be problematic, and recruitment is the issue. I also want to show the Deputy that it is not just section 39s that have the problem, by any manner or means. When I look at the various teams across a network, 23% of HSE teams have a vacancy.

The HSE team in network 2 also has a 28% vacancy. Enable, which is a section 39 organisation, has a 9% vacancy. There is another 20% vacancy rate in the HSE, and the figures go on and on. The greatest vacancy level, in network 6, stands at 54%, and this is a HSE team. Therefore, it is not just the section 39 organisations that cannot recruit. This problem being experienced right across the board. This is why there is a willingness on both sides of the House to work together to find a pathway forward in this regard. We must have various entry points. I say that because what we have done in the past is not working. We must be far more agile in our approach.