Denis Naughten (Roscommon-Galway, Independent) | Oireachtas source

Some three-quarters of speech and language therapists in counties Roscommon and Galway are currently involved in contact tracing. Before the lockdown, there was a four-year waiting list to access speech and language therapy in those counties. That means a preschool child referred to speech and language services might not get support before his or her Holy Communion. At present, 1,049 children in the two counties are awaiting access to speech and language therapy but three-quarters of the speech and language therapists are directly involved in contact tracing. This is not a good use of scarce therapy resources. It is not just speech and language therapists. I have received reports that occupational therapists, physiotherapists, audiologists and podiatrists, to name but a few highly trained staff, have been redeployed since the Covid-19 lockdown and remain redeployed in other areas of the health system while the waiting lists for vulnerable children mount and mount. This is not just happening in the west. I have also received reports of it happening in counties Westmeath, Laois, Offaly and Kildare.

How can it be that it has taken months after these staff were redeployed for any attempt to be made to recruit contact tracers? What is even more appalling is the fact that the therapists involved in the Galway-Roscommon autism spectrum disorder, ASD, unit based in Athenry were, prior to Covid-19, involved in a reconfiguration of that service which was to be completed by January of next year. It would not surprise me if Covid-19 is now used as an excuse to drag out that process, rather than the reconfiguration having being done during the lockdown when those therapists were not seeing children. That will add further delays.

What does this mean in reality? Liam, who turned five today, had his first block of speech therapy sanctioned in March but did not have any sessions before he started school this September because his therapist has been redeployed into contact tracing. As Liam was not sanctioned a special needs assistant, SNA, in his school, his older sister must translate for him in the classroom. These issues came about because nobody seems to have been recruited and trained for contact tracing after the first wave of infection months ago. In fact, clerical staff across Government agencies and members of the Defence Forces have been taken off contact tracing and sent back to their previous jobs but that is not the case for front-line therapists who could help Liam and make sure that his older sister, Ava, could be a normal child in first class rather than having to act as an SNA. I want this to stop today. These therapists should be put back to doing the work they ought to be doing today. I do not wish for the Government to wait until next Monday to make this happen. It needs to happen immediately. These staff should never have been redeployed in the first instance. After the first wave of infection, they should have been the first staff to be sent back to their front-line services, rather than sending back the clerical staff and having these staff still tied up in contact tracing.

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