Alan Dillon (Mayo, Fine Gael)
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65. To ask the Minister for Education and Skills the measures he is taking to support the number of college entrants to speech and language courses in the disability and mental health sectors; and if he will make a statement on the matter. [15668/23]

Alan Dillon (Mayo, Fine Gael)
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The limited availability of speech and language courses that are specifically focused on the disability and mental health sectors makes it difficult for prospective students to find a course to meet their interests and career goals. As a result of this limited availability and the many students applying for a small number of places, competition is fierce. This makes it difficult for students to secure places on their preferred courses. Clinical placements are also a crucial part of speech and language courses, providing students with practical experience and exposure to real-world situations. What is the Department doing to remove barriers for students and to address vacancies in the disability and mental health sectors?

Bernard Durkan (Kildare North, Fine Gael)
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Is this question being grouped?

Simon Harris (Wicklow, Fine Gael)
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Not that I am aware of.

Bernard Durkan (Kildare North, Fine Gael)
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Okay.

Simon Harris (Wicklow, Fine Gael)
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I thank Deputy Dillon for the question. He has raised an important issue. We need to train more people to work in therapies. In the area of speech and language therapy, the need is acute. Equally, as the Deputy suggested, it is also important to do this in general in respect of broader therapies concerned with working with people with a disability, older people and our mental health services.

I am pleased to tell the Deputy that significant engagement is ongoing between my Department and the Departments of Health, Children, Equality, Disability, Integration and Youth and Education to develop a joined-up approach to address demand in therapeutic disciplines, including speech and language therapy. Healthcare programmes are, by their nature, complex when it comes to delivery. That is not a reason not to do it, but, obviously, there is a need to ensure availability of appropriate placements and supports. A working group, comprising representatives from the Department of Health, the HSE, CORU and the higher education sector, has been established. Its specific job is to examine how extra placements can be secured to match each extra college place we create. My understanding is that officials from the Department of Health are drafting a placement governance oversight framework to support this work. Officials from my Department participated in the interdepartmental working group that was tasked with developing an action plan for disability services. My department will work closely with that group in this regard.

The Deputy may be aware that I asked the Higher Education Authority, HEA, to conduct a horizon-scanning and expression-of-interest exercise and ask our higher education institutions what more they could do in the areas of dentistry, pharmacy, medicine, nursing and veterinary medicine for the 2024-25 and 2025-26 academic years. That process will conclude very shortly. I have indicated that I want the next areas to be examined to be in the context of therapy, including speech and language therapy. I expect the HEA will be able to go out in May and do a horizon scanning exercise and ask our colleges and similar institutions what more they can do with a view to being able to significantly increase therapy places for the college year from September 2024-25. In addition, I am pleased to say I have already identified an ability to increase speech and language therapy places in Ireland by more than 20 by the start of this college year, but I do wish to do an awful lot more from September 2024 and that will be the purpose of the expression of interest exercise in May.

Alan Dillon (Mayo, Fine Gael)
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I thank the Minister for his response. I know he is committed to addressing the challenges and shortage in our therapies and practitioner sector around health. As a former Minister for Health, he will be acutely aware of the challenges being faced within the different sectors. It has been widely reported that access to speech and language therapy is essential. I know of one community in Achill that does not have access to these services for young children. We must ensure that child developmental difficulties do not worsen in the early stages, so access to these services is crucially important. We must also increase the number of clinical placements available in different sectors. The Minister talked about dentistry and other practitioner areas, but also included must be the disability and mental health sectors to ensure students get the necessary experience in this area. It is good to hear that 20 additional placements will be available for the coming year. I ask that this provision be even further expanded in 2024. Can the Minister give a commitment that additional work will be done, that is horizon scanning exercise will happen in May and that it will be reported on without any further delays?

Simon Harris (Wicklow, Fine Gael)
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I can. I am very committed to ensuring this happens concerning therapy areas, which includes speech and language therapy. I am working closely with the Minister for Children, Equality, Disability, Integration and Youth, Deputy O'Gorman, and the Minister of State, Deputy Rabbitte, on this issue. I think we have an opportunity to take a step-change approach to the size of the education sector in respect of the health service and our therapy provision. Without going back into former Minister for Health mode, this is just one part of the challenge. Other reforms are needed. I have seen the positive impact in my constituency of having speech and language therapy in reach in schools. There are other things to do in this regard, including recruitment and retention and the delivery of services, but clearly having enough people trained is an important thing.

In preparing to answer the Deputy's question, I explored the situation currently regarding speech and language therapy undergraduate enrolments. We have 376 spaces now on speech and language therapy courses. I expect this figure to increase by somewhere between 20 and 25 more places this September. I also expect to have a multi-annual plan for September 2024 and September 2025, working with the Minister for Children, Equality, Disability, Integration and Youth and the Minister of State, Deputy Rabbitte, to significantly increase further the number of places. I will keep in touch with the Deputy on this issue because I know he has an interest in it.

Alan Dillon (Mayo, Fine Gael)
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The solution to this problem is to provide readily available access to courses in speech and language for students. This would give parents access to early interventions through the HSE and not cause those parents to have to fork out hundreds if not thousands of euro privately for these services. I talked to the Irish Association of Speech & Language Therapists, which recognises that communication is a basic human right and that we must address this anomaly. We are seeing many more diagnoses of people who have mild forms of disability and are impaired in this regard. These concerns have been expressed. From listening to the Minister today, it is evident that the issue is being addressed. I look forward to further progress in this regard.

Simon Harris (Wicklow, Fine Gael)
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This issue can very much be addressed. One other area I will throw into the mix is that I think we need to challenge the education sector in respect of how it can address this issue in different and flexible ways. We have, for example, medicine and graduate entry medicine courses. We also have an ability for people to do nursing through further education and progress from there in nursing. We also have different grades, for example, in psychology. We now have an assistant psychology grade as well. I think we have a speech and language therapist assistant grade too. Obviously, and I am very clear on this, we need to increase the number of speech and language therapy training places in Ireland significantly. I am not in any way deviating from this. I also think, though, that we need to come at this issue from all angles in respect of how we can ensure that anybody in Ireland who wishes to play a role in helping a child or adult with a disability will have many different and diverse ways of helping. We must ensure as well that there are better linkages and pathways between further and higher education and different models of delivery so that people who are middle-aged, for example, with a couple of children or caring for an elderly parent, unable to go back to university full-time will have other ways of trying to get back into the workforce to play their part as well. This should also be a part of the conversation. I will keep in touch with the Deputy.