Hildegarde Naughton (Galway West, Fine Gael) | Oireachtas source

Significantly, the CDNT vacancy rate has reduced from 29% in 2023 to 22% in 2024, a reduction of 7% nationally. The Deputy is correct regarding recruitment and retention. A lot of work is happening in that space. In order to achieve the staffing level improvements seen in 2024 and fill those vacancies, there were intensive domestic and international recruitment efforts across the HSE and section 38 and 39 organisations to recruit and onboard staff. Recruitment efforts are being bolstered by optimising access to applicant pools through the opening up of HSE panels, HSE advertising streams and candidate pools, and also training places in higher education institutes, which have increased the number of clinical placements in children’s disability network teams. That serves to improve the recruitment of health and social care professionals into the CDNT teams. In addition, the HSE career hub has more than 38 registered applicants.

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