Health Services Staff
Dail Éireann — 2026-04-29
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Mary Butler (FF), Waterford

I thank the Deputy for raising this again and for his continued advocacy in relation to this situation. It is one that I am very familiar with, as our two constituencies align along a border. I have met one of the nurses who works in the service and who has advocated strongly as well. I just happened to meet her one day.
On behalf of my colleague, the Minister for Health, I thank the Deputy for raising this important issue, which he has highlighted a number of times. As the Deputy is aware from previous replies, every effort has been made to recruit staff to this service, but these efforts have not been successful to date. The HSE provides free optical services to preschool and national school children who are referred through child health and school health examinations and are identified as having sight problems. These services continue until a child reaches 16 years of age. In addition, the community ophthalmic services scheme, which has been in place since 1979, allows medical card holders aged 16 and over to access care from contracted ophthalmologists, community ophthalmic physicians, optometrists or dispensing opticians.
The HSE has confirmed that the community ophthalmic post in south Tipperary - University Hospital Waterford - became vacant in October 2024 following a planned retirement. In 2025, the post was regraded to that of consultant in medical ophthalmology to align with the national clinical programme for ophthalmology. Permanent consultant posts are advertised through the Public Appointments Service, PAS. This process can take time, and the HSE ran two temporary recruitment campaigns in May and September 2025 to maintain services in the interim. Unfortunately, no appointment was made following these campaigns. The permanent post was advertised by the PAS in November 2025. As there were no applicants, the closing date was extended to January 2026. One application was received but following shortlisting, the candidate did not progress to interview. The post was advertised in the British Medical Journal . In parallel, the HSE has advertised clinical optometrist and orthoptist posts, a process that closed in January. Filling these roles will help support the resumption of optical services in south Tipperary.
While recruitment to the consultant post remains ongoing, a multidisciplinary working group has been established involving consultants from University Hospital Waterford and the national clinical lead for ophthalmology. In addition, a targeted blitz clinic initiative is being processed to urgently address the significant waiting list backlog for patients in south Tipperary.
I take on board every word that the Deputy said in relation to over 2,000 children waiting, with many of them under four years of age. That early intervention is absolutely crucial. We accept that. Sometimes, it is difficult for different reasons to get the specialist consultant into a particular area. That is what is proving difficult in this case.
As Minister for State with responsibility for mental health, I have similar challenges in various areas. I was delighted to see a vacancy in south Kerry child and adolescent mental health services, CAMHS, that had been vacant since 2014 being filled only recently. It had been supported by locums up until that. The HSE has tried everything to try to get this post filled. It went out to the British Medical Journal . However, I am pleased to see that this targeted blitz clinic initiative is being progressed to urgently address the significant waiting list backlog for patients in south Tipperary. Hopefully, that will have an impact while the recruitment process is under way in parallel.

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Record URI: https://data.oireachtas.ie/akn/ie/debateRecord/dail/2026-04-29/debate/main
Retrieved: 2026-09-21T01:01:08+00:00
Sitting date: 2026-04-29