Disability Services Dail Éireann — 2025-06-17 ============================================================ Ruairí Ó Murchú (SF), Louth There are 414.5 whole-time equivalents. I thank the Minister of State. As she said, while this is a welcome increase a huge number of posts still need to be filled. I fear we are still talking about another four or five years, based on that growth, to deal with the number of unfilled positions. I have asked this before but does the Minister of State believe that if we fill all these positions, given how long that will take, we will have a fit for purpose service? There are issues in the delivery of the assessment of need. While I have no issue with having conversations with stakeholders, particularly SLTs, OTs and whoever else about the best way to deliver both assessments and therapies, I am very afraid of a move that is just about changing the law so the Government is not in breach of the law on assessments of need. --- 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/2025-06-17/debate/main Retrieved: 2026-08-14T04:53:55+00:00 Sitting date: 2025-06-17