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

I thank the Deputy, and it gives me the opportunity to set out here that we have put in place the workforce task force, which is really at a high level. It is not just our Department; it includes the Departments of Health, Further and Higher Education, Research, Innovation and Science and Social Protection, and it also includes jobs and recruitment. There is a wide span on it, and at all times we are looking at how we can increase capacity here and now, which is the assistant therapist course that the Minister, Deputy Harris has put in place. It is in our action plan that we will recruit 250 in the next two years but we cannot recruit them unless the courses are set out by the ETBs, which the Minister, Deputy Harris has put in place. We also need to have more masters programmes and additional spaces being created. That has been put in place, and I look forward to seeing some of this rolled out in September of next year. It is important to say that we have also seen that speech and language provision was increased by 120 additional posts.

There is a whole-of-government and whole-of-state approach here in increasing the workforce. The 500 applications that came in on the back of the Christmas campaign has been the best sign of light I have seen in a long time.

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