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

In response to the Minister of State and with all due respect, as this reply was presented to him by the HSE, that is farmyard manure because it does not address any of the issues that I have raised with the Minister of State here. I have given a week's notice on this specific issue.

In relation to all of these therapies, all the private providers have been back delivering these exact same services, and charging for them, for months at this stage, but not the HSE staff.

With all due respect, 50% of the staff have not returned to the front-line services that they were providing prior to this time. As I have already put on the public record here, three-quarters of the speech and language therapists, physiotherapists and occupational therapist are still involved in contact tracing instead of the job that they should be doing.

I had the opportunity here in the House on Thursday last to bring this up with the former Tánaiste, and current Minister for Defence, Deputy Coveney. The Minister told the Dáil that Defence Forces staff would be made available to provide contact tracing if the HSE asked for them. He also told the House that only 24 of the 647 applications received from former Defence Forces personnel to re-enlist to help out during the pandemic had been approved due to eligibility criteria, such as age. Surely some of those 623 applicants and, I am sure, many more staff who have answered Ireland's call, and staff who have already left the HSE, would be willing to come back to help out in order that children could learn to talk or to walk and that children could have ordinary everyday lives, just like their brothers and sisters and friends and neighbours. Surely it is not too much to ask that these valuable therapists would be sent back to the job that they should be doing at the front line, treating children on a day-to-day basis, instead of picking up the phone.

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