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

I thank the Deputy for tabling this Commencement matter and keeping it on the agenda. It was fantastic to meet him when I was in counties Cavan and Monaghan. I commend the teams I met with, both the Enable Ireland team and our HSE team on the ground. Both gave their time willingly to discuss the issues the Senator has eloquently raised and both said the same.

One of the issues related to pay, the variation between teams and how difficult it is to recruit into those teams. The Senator is correct that there is a gap between section 39 workers and section 38 and HSE workers. It will have to be addressed because if it is not we will not be able to recruit to those teams. We have teams that have not been fully populated. That can be seen in Cavan and Monaghan, where there is a 25% vacancy rate. Pay is part of the reason for that vacancy rate. It is not the conditions because the conditions include that it is a lovely part of the world to live in. There are reasons to choose to go there, including purchasing of properties and everything else, and the choice that is available. At the same time, those people still have to go for a mortgage and are €5,000 down in their pay grade. They could be on a team with people from the HSE and section 38 organisations who make an extra €5,000 and are sharing the same canteen room. Of course it is a concern and that is not wasted on me. I am trying my best to address that matter. I am addressing it with the National Federation of Voluntary Service Providers Supporting People with Intellectual Disability, FEDVOL, and recently had a meeting with Alison Harnett, who represents many section 39 workers.

The Senator mentioned long waiting lists being experienced in the Cavan-Monaghan area. What are we going to do about it? We need to address international recruitment. Where the Senator is located on the Border, international recruitment means looking to our neighbours in Northern Ireland and to the qualifications they have for speech and language therapy. I keep talking about speech and language because it is done in Derry, yet we cannot recruit people qualified in speech and language therapy in Northern Ireland to southern Ireland because there is a component there that CORU does not recognise.This is an issue I am addressing. The reason I am addressing it is that perhaps we can recruit and give training on the ground in the piece that is missing. This could ensure the requirements of CORU are met and at the same time there is on-the-ground training. This is an open and very live conversation with the HSE. As I said, international recruitment, along with efforts to increase the HSE's reach into the broader domestic supply market for the non-regulated healthcare workforce, is being used as an approach. However, there are limitations to international supply as Ireland is a signatory to the WHO global code of ethical recruitment of health workforce.

Technology to support the recruitment process should be used also. We do not need to go on big trade missions. We can do a lot on LinkedIn. We can manage our time very well. The Senator mentioned Enable Ireland. The section 39 organisations are far more fruitful in their recruitment. They have a quicker turnaround. They can recruit more quickly. Their process is more streamlined as opposed to taking eight months with the HSE. It can be done in six to eight weeks in organisations such Enable Ireland. We need to see why we cannot do it better in the HSE. If the section 39 organisations are able to recruit so much faster, we should release the posts to them as opposed to having 555 vacant posts nationally as I stand here today.