Roderic O'Gorman (Dublin West, Green Party) | Oireachtas source

The Minister of State, Deputy Rabbitte, and I are acutely aware of the huge pressures that are faced by our community disability network teams around the country and the impact this has on parents and, ultimately, children as well. That is why the issue has been prioritised by the Minister of State and I since responsibility for disability moved to my Department in March of this year. We published the PDS roadmap focusing on recruitment, retention and increasing the number of places in third level courses for those therapist posts about which the Deputy spoke. We have focused on conversion masters programmes funded by the HSE to upskill people as therapists more quickly. We are also focusing on the introduction of a new therapist assistant grade at level 5 that can bring more people into the system more quickly to actually get interventions for children and their families.

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