Anne Rabbitte (Galway East, Fianna Fail) | Oireachtas source

I look forward to engaging with the Deputy going forward on County Donegal and the CDNT. I am concerned about the CDNT in County Donegal for the simple reason that it is a HSE team. If we fail to recruit onto a HSE team, my options are very limited. We have to make it incredibly attractive. The clinicians were incredibly helpful to me during the summer when I was down there. They are the ones who told me about the panel process, what I needed to do and am trying to do. To be very fair to Bernard Gloster, he is more than willing to step up whatever needs to be done to ensure that there is a proper, functioning team, not just in County Donegal but across the CDNTs. At the moment, there is a clear pinch point in County Donegal because when you do not have the occupational therapist assessing the child for their basic need of machinery they require to live a full life, there is an issue. I appeal to the HSE again that, regarding the national access plan, they redeploy staff, even if it is only for a week, to have some of assessments done for children in crisis, for footwear or wheelchairs and that it is a priority. I take that point away from tonight and will revert to the Deputy over the coming days.

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