Ms Miriam Kenny:

We have talked about trying to keep people within the service. I worked in the health service and it can be a very stressful environment in which to work. That is the first thing I will say. The second point is with regard to therapists. We find that we meet people who are excellent and very much want to do the right job, but they are totally swamped and feel that they are not providing the quality of service they want to provide. Why would a clinician stay within that if he or she is not providing the service that he or she was trained to do? I speak to many different friends who are involved in and who work in those areas. They will tell us that they cannot maintain it. They are also meeting people and parents who are distressed. Much of the time, the therapists are the front line and they get the frustrations of the parents. It is so upsetting for them if a person trained and went in as an occupational therapist or as a speech and language therapist and that person wants to deliver a service and is not able to deliver that. I have spoken also with people who were involved in senior management within the disability sector and who found it excessively stressful. Again, this is due to a lack of resources. Again there is goodwill and they want to do the right job but they cannot do it with what they are given.

We need to go back to have a root and branch review of what they are doing. On paper some of the things like the children's' disability network teams look great but we need people, at all times, to provide a service. We need to support that service and we need to embrace the people who are actually delivering those services, and make sure that they want to stay and want to be employed by the HSE. Why would somebody do that job if they cannot actually deliver the service they trained for?