Ceisteanna ar Pholasaí nó ar Reachtaíocht - Questions on Policy or Legislation Dail Éireann — 2024-06-19 ============================================================ Patrick Costello (GP), Dublin South-Central I want to raise the issue of public health nurse, PHN, shortages. There is a general problem with a lack of public health nurses in many areas, but in my constituency, the public health centre on Old County Road has issued a letter that it is suspending developmental checks. Developmental checks conducted by PHNs are an incredibly important part of early intervention and of identifying problems for young people, children and families. The loss of developmental checks is an incredible worry and is simply storing up problems for the future. Can we address the need and the public health nurse shortages in general? In particular, Old County Road suspending developmental checks is a grave risk to the community. I hope the HSE, with Government intervention, will address the staff shortages there as quickly as possible. --- Source: Houses of the Oireachtas. Licensed under CC BY 4.0 (https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/). The Official Report is revised after first publication; the fetch timestamp below identifies the version quoted. Record URI: https://data.oireachtas.ie/akn/ie/debateRecord/dail/2024-06-19/debate/main Retrieved: 2026-08-14T04:53:05+00:00 Sitting date: 2024-06-19