Mr. Bernard O'Regan:

The Deputy is asking me to give an answer on something that is impossible to answer in terms of a number. My goal is that we would recruit for all of those. In reality, all I can tell the Deputy is what we are doing to address it. It is primarily through two avenues. First, we have recently gone out to all of the staff on the panels. These are all of this year’s graduates who are still in the process of varying stages of recruitment within the HSE system. We provided them with information on what working in a children’s disability network team, CDNT, is like. We created a phone line for people to phone us so we can put them in contact with people to talk about the pros and cons of working in CDNTs. A previous committee member referenced that it is not always attractive. We think there are many things that can make it attractive for people and we are trying to convey that information.

The second thing we are doing is an ongoing international recruitment campaign. The children’s disability services is one of the priority areas within that. We are working with colleagues to address issues, including, for example, the registration of those staff. We can recruit people internationally. In order for them to meet the CORU requirements, they need supervised placements. We are working with colleagues to put in place mechanisms to support that.