Verona Murphy (Wexford, Independent) | Oireachtas source

I thank Sinn Féin for its work in putting together and tabling this motion. I recently submitted four parliamentary questions relating to disability services in Wexford. I asked the Minister to state the number of occupational therapists employed as part of the CDNT in Wexford. The response stated three occupational therapists were currently in posts across the County Wexford CDNT, that a total of nine occupational therapists had been approved for Wexford and the HSE was experiencing significant staff recruitment challenges, which were having an impact on service delivery. The HSE and the Department of Health have identified the need for nine occupational therapists and yet we have just three employed in the county. That is 33% of what is required for the children of Wexford.

During my first month in this House, I raised the question of training and of how the HSE advertised its staffing requirements across every area and communicated that need to the third level institutions. The Ceann Comhairle intervened at the time with the Minister and demanded an answer. The Minister's response was the issue would be rectified and it would be fixed, yet we still see only three colleges accrediting courses for occupational therapists, OTs. The starting salary for an OT is €37,000. That will sound like a lot of money to the parents seeking intervention, but it is only 9% of the salary received by the CEO of the HSE, Paul Reid. Perhaps there could be a re-examination of the pay scales to reduce some of the obscene salaries paid to top executives. Allocating funds to better starting salaries for front-line areas might help with recruitment. It would certainly be a more beneficial and effective use of funds.

In another parliamentary question, I asked the Minister to outline the number of children awaiting an appointment with the occupational therapist in the CDNT in County Wexford and the time they had been waiting. Unfortunately, the HSE did not provide an answer to either of those questions. I can tell it the answer, though. One of my constituents, Amy, has a little son who has been waiting since he was two years old. He is six years old now and has had no appointment yet. That would mean the waiting time is four years. This is not early intervention. It is pure and utter neglect.

I asked another question about the number of children awaiting an assessment with the CDNT in County Wexford and the time each child had been waiting. My last question was about the number of children aged under 18 waiting to be seen by the CDNT and the autism services in County Wexford and the length of time each child had been waiting and had been on a waiting list. The response I received was the number of children waiting in County Wexford before the reconfiguration of the services was 445 and this number was likely to increase. The response was unclear as to whether this figure was an answer to my first question, my second question or to both queries.

This is pretty infuriating. Almost all the dealings I have with HSE services involve some major issue. Sometimes it is a staffing problem and sometimes a funding problem or a problem of capacity or physical resources. All these issues combined demonstrate clearly to me the HSE is in crisis and is being poorly led. The organisation's CEO, Paul Reid, earns more than the Minister and the Taoiseach put together, and what do we have to show for it? I do not see any evidence of improving outcomes for patients and I do not see value for money for the taxpayers. What I do see are waiting lists getting longer and longer. I am pretty sure Paul Reid does not have to wait four years for anything.

People in these situations, who have been on waiting lists for years, have been caring for children whose needs it is incredibly difficult to meet without support from experts and specialists, which those parents and their children currently cannot access. People are at their wits' end trying to cope with no help in sight. I receive heartbreaking phone calls daily from parents like Amy who plead with me to help and to see if anything can be done for their children. These are the very people who deserve to go to the wellness conferences, but they are not earning enough money to do so. Their tax payments contribute to the very large salaries of those in charge, but these parents are barely keeping their heads above water and trying to do right by their children. All they want is timely help and early intervention, but they are not getting that. Why can we not get it right for once? Why are we ignoring court rules that state it is wrong?

Are we just going to ignore it and give somebody else a pay rise that might deflect from the seriousness of this matter? This is utter and total negligence by the hierarchy of the HSE and, more so, by the Government for allowing the executive to get away with it without accountability.

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