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

The CDNTs in community healthcare west provide support, care and therapy to children and their families across Galway, Mayo and Roscommon.

I will first address the Deputy’s comment to the effect that it is an empty building. Currently, the list of staff includes: one children's disability network manager, CDNM; one grade 5 administrator; two grade 3 clerical officers; 2.3 senior occupational therapists, OTs; one staff-grade OT; one OT assistant; one physio assistant; 2.8 senior physios; one staff-grade physio; 1.8 senior social workers; 0.4 behavioural support therapists; 3.5 senior speech and language therapists, SLTs; 1.9 senior psychologists; and 0.8 preschool liaisons. To me, that is not an empty building. That is the list of staff currently working there. When the Deputy and I attended the opening of that building, the staff shortfall was 38%. It is now down to 28%. It is good to know that in the last couple of weeks, we have managed to recruit a physio assistant and a social worker who started on the team recently. Next week the psychologist will be starting and in the first week in January we will have a senior speech and language therapist which will bring down the deficit to 28%. I accept that is still a long way to go from a full team.

What will make a team complete is the question I am addressing. The team is currently short two staff-grade SLTs, one assistant SLT, three senior OTs, one senior dietician, one behavioural support specialist, a 0.5 of a clinical nurse manager grade 2 and one staff-grade psychologist. I will explain the panels in my next contribution.

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