Bríd Smith (Dublin South Central, People Before Profit Alliance) | Oireachtas source

My question concerns reports on staff who have been let go from tracking and tracing during the Covid-19 crisis and are being replaced by people on CPL contracts. I asked the Minister a question, which was passed to the HSE, on the numbers of those redeployed from other services who come from speech and language therapy, occupational therapy and the psychologist professions. I asked this because there are tens of thousands of parents who are anxiously waiting for those services for their children. They include the parents of Shay, an eight-year-old boy from Walkinstown who has Down’s syndrome and has no speech and language, occupational therapy, physiotherapy or psychology services. In this context, the HSE tells me that. as of 18 September, 16 speech and language therapists and eight occupational therapists were redeployed to tracking and tracing. Given that those waiting lists for desperately needed services are expanding exponentially, can the Taoiseach guarantee that no speech and language, occupational therapist, child psychologist or other desperately needed personnel is or will be redeployed to tracking and tracing?

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