Mairead Farrell (Galway West, Sinn Fein) | Oireachtas source

Ba mhaith liom mo bhuíochas a ghabháil le Páirtí an Lucht Oibre as an rún seo a chur chun cinn inniu. I would like to raise a number of issues. First, Ability West which provides services for people with disabilities in Galway has had to temporarily close a respite centre due to staffing issues. We are now entering the third month that it has been unable to facilitate respite care for service users. This is, of course, a vital service for people with disabilities and their families. Currently, the HSE is advising that there is no timeline for the reopening of the service.

The second issue is in relation to support staff such as speech therapists, physiotherapists, and occupational therapists who work with children with disabilities. We hear all the time about the recruitment and retention issues that are at play across the health sector. We have been hearing about it for years but we also need to think about what we are actually doing about it. I am friends with a number of qualified healthcare workers who would love to be able to build a life in Ireland but they are finding that they cannot get stable, well-paid work at home. They can get that abroad but they just cannot get that full-time work here. Once we have these workers, we need to make sure there is that joined-up thinking around delivering their expertise where it is needed.

I met recently with a parent of an autistic child who is in an autistic spectrum disorder, ASD, class with four other children in Connemara. This child has had to reduce his hours in school because of the lack of available supports. The CDNT has vacancies for occupational therapists, speech therapists and a dietician. In terms of the situation on the ground with these services, a speech therapist travelled to work with one of the children in the class in the middle of Connemara in one day. They then returned a number of weeks later to work with a different child. A far more productive use of that therapist's time would be to accommodate multiple children in the one visit rather than spending that time in the car between Galway city and Connemara. Sometimes there is that lack of joined-up thinking. This class includes three non-verbal children so they really need that support. This would be a massive opportunity for the children to engage with the therapist and move forward in their speech development.

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