Mary Butler (Waterford, Fianna Fail) | Oireachtas source

I thank the Deputy. We have had the change from the nine community healthcare organisations, CHOs, to six individual health regions. Each of the six health regions and each national service has been provided with a specified number of whole-time equivalent staff members that they can hire. They can replace, recruit and prioritise staff within the approved numbers they have. By the end of this year, there will be 133,000 whole-time equivalent staff members working across the HSE. That is an increase of over 20,000 staff in the past four years. The health regions have further control to focus resources where there is the greatest need and this informs decisions made at local level on the filling of available posts. They have informed us, which is very good news, that they have given approval for getting the permanent backfilling of the vacant speech and language therapist post. When a post becomes available and the post of the person moving into that post is not backfilled, nothing happens. It is really good news that that post is being backfilled and, in the short term, an interim measure has been agreed that a new graduate grade paediatric speech and language therapist employed through an agency will provide a level of cover at King's Island Primary Care Centre until the post is filled permanently.

It is really important that I reiterate that recruitment and retention of these very specialised, dedicated staff has become very difficult. Retention is also an issue. It is a full-time post and it is very welcome that the other post is being backfilled. The HSE is confident that the new person will be in place in a number of weeks. That is very positive and we will keep a close eye on this matter for Deputy Sheehan because it is very important that those children have those vital interventions.

See this speech in context