Seán Kyne (Fine Gael)
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I thank the Cathaoirleach's office for choosing this Commencement matter. I welcome the Minister of State, Deputy Robert Troy, to the Chamber.

I want to raise speech and language services and a specific family, whom I will not identify, that have contacted me regarding services in the Connemara area. A child, soon to be four years old and due to start school in September 2026, was referred to the HSE for speech and language in August 2023 before he turned two years old. He was diagnosed with an expressive language delay. He had certain developmental issues, and it was advised that he would benefit from a place in a speech and language class in Rinn Mhór in County Galway. North Connemara to Rinn Mhór is about an hour-and-a-half drive each way of over 80 km. Indeed, to reach a class on time would mean the parents having to leave the house at 6.30 a.m. to get to the school. The Department looked at opening a speech and language class in Connemara but was told they did not have enough for it. It is not good enough that any parents would be expected to drive a four-year-old child over 80 km and an hour and a half each way to a class, not only into Galway city, but crossing Galway city into Rinn Mhór to avail of services.

Tá rud éigin mícheart leis an gcóras nuair a chaithfidh tuismitheoirí de ghasúir ceithre bliana d'aois atá ag tosú ar scoil i Meán Fómhair 2026 taisteal ó thuaisceart Chonamara an bealach ar fad go dtí an chathair agus trasna na cathrach go dtí an Rinn Mhór chun teiripe urlabhra agus teanga a fháil. Níl sé sin cóir nó maith go leor. Ní mór go mbeadh reáchtáil ag gach duine ar sheirbhísí agus tá sé mícheart a bheith ag súil go mbeidh tuismitheoirí agus páistí ag tiomáint ar feadh uaireanta chun seirbhísí riachtanacha a fháil. D'fhéadfadh tuismitheoirí ó thuaisceart Chonamara a bheith ag tiomáint os cionn uair go leith go dtí an Rinn Mhór agus ar ais ag braith ar an trácht ar aon lá. Dúradh liom go bhfuil na seirbhísí i nGaillimh ar fáil sa Rinn Mhór agus i mBéal Átha na Sluaigh. Tá gá le seirbhísí taobh thiar den Choirib freisin. Cad iad na pleananna atá ag feidhmeannaigh na seirbhísí sláinte na seirbhísí sin a sholáthair i gConamara?

We all accept that services need to be accessible for the people who need them. In this case, for a child aged four and for his parents, in terms of quality of life, management of time, and being able to look after other children within the family, services should be provided closer to the parents' home for the sake of the child. A child with developmental issues has enough going on without having to spend an hour and a half each way in a car. I am asking that the HSE, in conjunction with the Department of education, would ensure there are classes and equity provided to youngsters in the Connemara region around speech and language.

Robert Troy (Longford-Westmeath, Fianna Fail)
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I thank Senator Kyne for raising this issue on behalf of his constituent's family. I am taking this Commencement matter on behalf of my colleague, the Minister for Health, Deputy Carroll MacNeill. Primary care therapy services such a speech and language therapy play a central role in the provision of early and cost-effective interventions. However, the HSE has advised that primary care therapy services such as speech and language therapy are experiencing increased pressure due to an increase in referrals, alongside increasing complexity of presentations which is leading to longer interventions, as well as challenges related to recruitment and retention of healthcare professionals working in general and specialist services in the community. Taken together, these factors have all contributed to an increase in waiting lists and waiting times for services across the country. Specifically, in Galway, the HSE advises that there have been challenges filling a number of maternity leave vacancies. A local recruitment campaign was carried out recently and a senior speech and language therapist panel was formed in order to address these vacancies. In addition, the HSE is managing vacancies locally through use of agency staff and ensuring that a service is provided to the highest priority children.

The Minister fully acknowledges the urgent need to improve timely access to services and consistency of patient experience, regardless of location, for all primary care therapy services, including speech and language therapy. To address long waiting times, the Department of Health and HSE have jointly developed a focused programme approach to put in place considerable standardised infrastructure to support systematic responses to primary care therapy waiting lists. As part of this programme approach and building on successful local initiatives focused on reducing primary care waiting lists, the Minister has asked the CEO of the HSE to put measures in place to scale up these initiatives at a national level to address three primary care services, specifically speech and language therapy, physiotherapy and occupational therapy. Beginning immediately, the HSE has been asked to reduce the waiting lists for these three therapies to less than ten months. Nationally, this will remove over 60,000 people from the waiting lists across these three primary care therapies. There will be a significant improvement on where we are now, as approximately one third of our patients are currently waiting over a year to access services. The Government has provided initial funding to the HSE to begin this work.

The Minister fully recognises the frustration of people in parts of Galway with long waiting times for speech and language therapy services. She also recognises that much more needs to be done to fill local vacancies, address waiting lists and ensure consistent, equitable and timely access to primary care services across communities. This Government is committed to building capacity in primary care, as outlined in the programme for Government, by recruiting additional staff numbers, promoting advanced practice roles in the community for health and social care professionals and increasing the number of college training places for health and social care professions. Together, these measures to reduce therapy waiting times to 12 months nationally, and to build capacity in our healthcare workforce, will bring about improvements in access to services across the country, including in Connemara.

Seán Kyne (Fine Gael)
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I thank the Minister of State for his response on behalf of the Department of Health. It gave a lot of plans but did not give any specifics in relation to improved services or any timelines. It stated that these changes will bring about improvements to service across the country, including in Connemara, but where, when and what age will this child be when improved services are made available to him? I will engage further with the Department of Health and the HSE on this issue. I reiterate that it is not acceptable that a four-year-old child and his parents are expected to drive an hour and a half each way into and across Galway city to avail of an important service, namely, speech and language therapy. It is necessary to get those interventions early to ensure the child has the best chances in life. I appreciate the Minister of State is here on behalf of the Department of Health but I will raise this further to try to ensure there are improved services in the region and a quicker response time.

Robert Troy (Longford-Westmeath, Fianna Fail)
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I appreciate the Senator's frustration. He raised a specific query in relation to his own area in Connemara. To be fair to the Department, it acknowledges that this is a problem.It has adopted a national plan as to how to target this problem in relation to the systematic programme it will roll out across the three disciplines: occupational therapy, physiotherapy and speech and language therapy. If the scheme is improved nationally, it will have an impact across all regions.

I will take back what the Senator has raised specifically in relation to Connemara and ask if the Minister, Deputy Jennifer Carroll MacNeill, can come back to him directly as to how this targeted approach will deal with the long waiting lists in Connemara. We experience this right across the country. Only yesterday I had a round-table discussion with service providers in my constituency about the challenges they face, and the big issue, which the Government will have to come to terms with, is how to ensure we can attract and retain critical professionals to provide these services, because we are not doing so. There is a high vacancy rate - maternity leave, people moving into the private sector - and we will have to try to address that because if we do not have the professionals to provide the services, we will not be able to bring down the waiting lists.