Seán Canney (Galway East, Independent) | Oireachtas source

I will come back to the basic point. I understand about panels opening up. Parents on the ground do not. The children are not getting the services they require. In some cases they have been getting nothing for years. We all talk about early intervention as the secret to getting on top of disabilities, so to speak. It is not happening. The parents will tell you that. I am not blaming the Minister of State but I am blaming the system we have. Even on the day of the official opening, one of the HSE's people mentioned the number of staff they had there, to be shouted down by other staff within the HSE, saying that was not true and to divide that by two and it might be right. The figures the parents are being given, looking at them, show 40% to 50% vacancies. There is one manager and 740 families in the system. The parents told me it was admitted to them on the day at the forum meeting they had that the staff had the correct contact details for only 100 of those families. I do not blame the staff who are there. They are working under severe pressure. In fairness, that is why we cannot get staff because we do not have the backup for them in terms of administrative staff and all that goes with that. This is for the children. This is Christmas. Let us get it done.

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