Seán Canney (Galway East, Independent)
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There is something fundamentally wrong when that is what young people are doing when we train them here in this country. These are the options they are taking. Everybody wants to travel and there is no problem with that. The reason she was traveling was that she was not offered a full-time, permanent position, so she was going to explore the world while she was young. If people were being offered full-time positions, they would understand that as recognition of their qualifications. They would then add to this figure that I have to hand. A huge recruitment campaign is going on by the HSE, which is what the paper says here. At the same time, people are shouting to get in but then they are walking out the door. There is therefore something wrong. The retention of staff is an issue. I have a further question on that.

Another issue Ms Moran raised related to the buildings. In Tuam, we have a fine CDNT building that opened last October. I fought hard, with others, to get the funding in place to make sure all the services could be put into one place. When the parents had their first forum meeting last October, they realised how bad things really were when they spoke to one another. They took to the streets in December. Some of them met with Senator Clonan this week.

The research the witnesses have done is good, but we need to get back to the basics, such as the training and retention of professionals. I do not know how we can get that message to the HSE, the Department of children and youth affairs, or whoever is now responsible for holding onto these people. This embargo has been used to great effect for political reasons. It has been said that they cannot take people on because of an embargo and that is creating more pressure. At the end of the day, none of us as public representatives likes this. I am sure everybody in this committee room, as well as everybody else in the Dáil and the Seanad, has parents coming into them in a bad state. That is where the failure is. The families are being failed and there are practical things we need to do. We do not need to have huge working groups or that group that was mentioned.

From what we have seen, that group may not have the necessary expertise. We have something now and, if we hear about the reconfiguration of services again, the parents will go entirely AWOL because, for many years, they were sold the line that the reconfiguration was going to take time. We now need to take what is good and start building on it. Will the witnesses comment on that?