Neasa Hourigan (Dublin Central, Green Party)
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I would love more detail. The work that Croí did is excellent because it had a lot of consultants collaborating with it on this. To be clear, there is an issue around the training of cardiac physiologists. I have very little time so I might add this to my third question, which is really for the Department. My third question is around the training of educational counselling psychology because it is hugely disadvantaged in terms of funding compared to clinical psychology. In Sláintecare, we are moving towards a model where we need tonnes of counselling and educational psychologists.

I am a bit worried by language like “If the Minister, Deputy Harris, is interested, we will sit down with him and talk about this”. Surely the language should be: “The Department is going to talk to the HSE. We will find out what we need based on demographics and then we will tell the Department of Further and Higher Education, Research, Innovation and Science what needs to be brought through and how many placements are required.” This is our health service. Do we have a sense that there is more about structure than “We will sit down with the Minister, Deputy Harris.”? There are particular issues here. I am sure every Deputy in the room has a long list of lacunae in the training of health professionals and we could probably give them to the HSE. Is the Department giving them to the Minister, Deputy Harris, and is it more structured than “If he is interested, we will sit down with him”?