Paul Lawless (Mayo, Aontú)

I welcome these statements. Aontú will be supporting the Opposition's motion later this evening. I met Cara Darmody today. What struck me most was how young she is. As I looked at her chocolate, her buns and her homework, it struck me just how young she is, yet she is forced into this campaign which is three years in the making. I commend Cara. I also commend the thousands of families and parents who like Cara are struggling immensely with a difficult situation at home and are forced also to be campaigners. It is one of the biggest issues in my constituency clinics.

I believe the Minister of State wants to solve this issue and hope she will listen to some of the suggestions. It is difficult to believe Cara has been outside for 50 hours and we have thousands of people waiting on assessments of need, yet we have trained so many psychologists who are abroad and cannot come back into the system. It is an incredible situation. Because of the lack of assistant psychologist places in Ireland, we are forcing people abroad who want to qualify into this profession and whom we so desperately need. When they go abroad, we tell them to stay abroad. There is no pathway for a psychologist to return to Ireland. It is absolutely shocking. I know of a number of senior psychologists who did their undergraduate studies in Ireland and went away to highly regarded universities in the UK and other places, and who have been waiting years in bureaucracy to get back and work in the HSE. This is a crisis and it is time the Government dealt with it. There are solutions to this crisis but we need a proactive Government to take the necessary steps to introduce simple, common-sense measures. I ask the Minister of State to deal with this issue of the lack of a pathway for psychologists coming back from the UK.

I also want to raise the lack of spaces available. In order to have continuity and a healthy sector with psychologists coming through, we need to address the lack of places for junior and assistant psychologists. I am told that for every junior or assistant psychologist in this country, there are 20 others waiting to get onto the panel. There are forums online which the Minister of State can see if she wishes. People attend my clinics as I am sure they attend hers who actually want to become assistant psychologists but cannot do so. They go abroad and then we tell them to stay away. They cannot come back and work in the HSE because we are going to flood them with bureaucracy. This is one simple measure we could address. The Minister of State needs to take a proactive, solution-focused approach to this issue.

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