Micheál Carrigy (Fine Gael) | Oireachtas source

I support Senator Craughwell's remarks about local authority members. I spent 11 years on Longford County Council, and I have seen the difficulties members encounter in attending the large number of meetings, not just at council level but also at local level. I support the calls for a debate.

I also support Senator Burke's calls for a debate on forestry. A number of us were at a meeting earlier with the Social, Economic Environmental Forestry Association of Ireland, SEEFA, to highlight the concerns within that industry. To me, it is a win-win to support the industry with regard to our carbon emissions targets. There seems to be a logjam somewhere in the Department. It would be important for the Minister of State to come to the House to address the concerns of Members and to try to find a solution to the various issues, whether they are at the planning end of it or whatever. It is an issue that needs to be highlighted and addressed.

Yesterday, the Joint Committee on Autism met with senior officials from the HSE to discuss the severe lack of staff within the 91 children's disability network teams, CDNTs, throughout the country. It is important to ask the Minister for Health to come to the House to discuss it. There is a serious issue somewhere within the human resources section of the HSE with employing the staff we need to provide the services to which children are entitled. There are more than 834 positions funded by Government. The Government has put the funding in place for the CDNTs throughout the country, yet none of the positions are filled because there is no availability in the workforce.The conversation has not taken place between the universities and the HSE. They must forward plan in order to ensure that we have a sufficient number of professionals joining the system in order to be able to fill these positions. We need a debate on adding these professions to the critical skills list, and on going abroad, targeting and bringing people into this country to fill these positions until we have a sufficient number of people graduating from our third level institutions. The situation has reached crisis point and if we do not deal with it then children will suffer.