Ceisteanna ar Pholasaí nó ar Reachtaíocht - Questions on Policy or Legislation Dail Éireann — 2026-05-07 ============================================================ Helen McEntee (FG), Meath East I am happy to raise this matter directly. There are a number of things we need to do in response. We need to ensure we have enough qualified people and ensure we have enough courses and training opportunities working with our universities. That is happening already through the Department of the Minister, Deputy Lawless, working with the Minister, Deputy Carroll MacNeill. We also need to consider where legislative changes are required, in particular when it comes to assessments where more OT time is being spent on assessments as opposed to providing services, not just for children but for people more broadly. Those changes need to come into effect soon and I know the Minister is working on that. We also need to make sure we have the funding to be able to support the hiring of new staff to provide these services more broadly. I will raise the matter directly. --- 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/2026-05-07/debate/main Retrieved: 2026-09-28T05:50:46+00:00 Sitting date: 2026-05-07