I absolutely agree with the Senator. There are practical issues involved. Not having a PLAB examination until November 2023 is not acceptable, to be quite honest. I will take that point with me when I leave the Chamber. I acknowledge and commend the Minister for Health, Deputy Stephen Donnelly, for ensuring that where English has been a barrier for some of the UK citizens who have arrived here, funding and space has been made available. That is welcome. However, there is a cohort of people who would be ready to hit…

There is nothing like a transport issue affecting healthcare and disability matters as we head into Christmas. I thank the Senator for raising this matter, which he has raised and advocated for on numerous occasions. I have been provided with a script but I am better without one for this matter. It is the case that CHO 1 charges. That charging mechanism was introduced to ensure all people in CHO 1 could have access to services. That service is being provided but we are now facing a cost-of-living crisis. As the Sen…

I acknowledge the work CHO 1 has done. It ensured nobody got left behind when people were trying to stretch their money. That is why it has put in place a closed-route door-to-door service. Perhaps other CHOs might have taken the hard view that they do not provide that sort of service and left families with the burden of bringing loved ones to day services. CHO 1 has been fantastic in ensuring all people could attend the service but it has come at a cost. It is a burden of €1,000 in a cost-of-living crisis and if t…

I thank the Deputy very much for raising that issue. He is quite right. There are more than 17,000 children waiting for their initial appointment. He is also correct that in the past 12 months, we have reconfigured 91 teams all over the country to ensure that we now know how many children are on waiting lists and what the timeframe is. The Minister, Deputy Stephen Donnelly, already spoke about what has been put in place. There is now a strategy in place to address it in order that we will get every child who has be…

One in the sleeping room.

I thank the Labour Party for this motion. I am taking this on behalf of the Minister, Deputy O'Gorman. I will actually stick to the script. I have a big interest in this area and a lot to say on it but I have to say what the Minister wants said first. If time allows, I will then come in myself. It was a really good and rich debate and I have opinions on it, which I will not be shy about sharing. This timely motion from the Labour Party is a welcome opportunity to debate the important issue of early learning and chi…

I thank the Senator for raising this matter and welcome the opportunity to provide an update on it. I am told this morning that the proposal to repurpose CoAction child and family centre in Bantry into a residential for adults is in response to several recent HIQA reports which highlighted unsuitable premises at the Bayview-Seskin residential unit. In light of this, the HSE requested that CoAction review properties for rent or sale in Bantry and the wider area as an alternative to repurposing the existing administr…

I would like to be associated with welcoming of Ronan Scully's family to the Gallery. Ronan lives in Galway, so I am proud to have that connection and I acknowledge the wonderful work he does. Let us be clear about this. Recently, the HSE informed me that the work CoAction is doing in west Cork under PDS is one of the better examples around the country. I struggle to find good, so is it not great to find it in west Cork? Is it not great that I can point to it and say that is what good looks like? If someone is thin…

I thank the Deputy for raising this important issue and for giving me the opportunity to discuss it in the House this evening. He raised some very valuable questions in his contribution. As Minister of State with responsibility for disabilities, I recognise and acknowledge that the Progressing Disability Services, PDS, programme has been challenging for many stakeholders, but especially so for families, the children, and the young people using the service. It is also important to acknowledge the challenges that are…

I thank the Deputy. I reassure him and the House that the HSE continues to explore a range of options. The targeted national and international recruitment for CDNTs is what I am talking about in terms of the end of the year. There is the sponsorship and the apprenticeship programme, the targeted international recruitment, with an agreed reallocation allowance, a sponsorship programme for therapy grades, an apprenticeship programme for therapy grades, employment of graduates as therapist assistants as they await the…

I thank the Deputy for raising this important issue. I have a meeting with CHO 1 next week to address the issues facing Enable Ireland in the Cavan area and to address exactly what the Deputy has raised and what we can do in the interim to assist with recruitment and retention in that service.

I thank Deputy Colm Burke for raising this matter, which I am taking on behalf of the Minister for Health, Deputy Stephen Donnelly. The Minister is committed to supporting our national population-based screening programmes. As we all know, screening saves lives and it is important that decisions on the introduction of new screening programmes are made in line with international best practices. As the Deputy may know, decisions about the introduction of new population-based screening programmes in Ireland are made o…

I reiterate that the NSAC will consider the final European Council recommendations on cancer screening and advise the Minister and the Department of Health on the evidence as it applies to Ireland. The NSAC is committed to ensuring the expansion of population-based screening in Ireland in a safe, ethical, robust and evidence-based manner. The introduction of a new population-based screening programme, therefore, can be a lengthy and complex process and can be possible only after a full evidential assessment has bee…

I thank the Deputy for raising this issue, which I am taking on behalf of the Minister for Health. Of course, people can become unwell outside of normal GP practice hours and may require urgent GP care, so it is important they have access to out-of-hours GP services when needed. Accordingly, general practitioners who hold General Medical Services, GMS, contracts for the provision of services to medical card and GP visit card holders are required under their contract to make suitable arrangements for emergencies out…

I will conclude with the script. The Government recognises the need for a strong out-of-hours GP service, a key component in the delivery of primary care services. The Government continues to support GPs and out-of-hours providers in their continued provision of GP services. The HSE provides substantial funding to GP out-of-hours co-operatives to help enable them to fulfil their service commitments and care for their patients. This year, almost €5 million in funding has been allocated to Shannondoc through a servic…

I thank the Deputy for raising this important issue. I am taking it on behalf of the Minister, Deputy Donnelly, so I will keep to the script. I recognise the long-standing interest of the Deputy in the development of healthcare at University Hospital Limerick and the entire mid-west. We are all familiar with the difficulties faced by UHL. It was in consideration of those difficulties that the Minister visited the hospital in February this year. Following that visit, he requested an HSE expert team to review the day…

I again state that the Government, along with the Department of Health, remains fully committed to improving services in Limerick and throughout the country. Significant efforts are being made to ensure the issues, such as overcrowding in the emergency department and delays for elective care at UHL, are being addressed as a matter of priority. As I noted, following the Minister, Deputy Donnelly's, intervention earlier this year, the performance management improvement unit of the HSE immediately engaged with the hos…

I thank the Deputy for raising this important matter. I am told by the HSE that a number of young persons with a disability attend both the RT programme and day services in the Beara area. An arrangement has been in place for a number of years between RehabCare and Local Link for these service users living in this area to be collected in the morning, brought to their service and brought home in the evening. This is because the geographic location is rural and there was no existing transport service in place via the…

I again thank the Deputy for raising this important issue. I ask her to bear with me as we get to the bottom of it. It is very clear from Google that the family resource centre raised in excess of €10,000 to keep the bus on the road. I will talk to the Minister for Transport over the coming days and engage with the NTA. It is also important to realise that, within disability services, I pay out more than €54 million a year to support transport. There is surely a way the Department of Transport and the Department of…

I thank the Senator for raising this matter, which I am taking on behalf of the Minister, Deputy Ryan. The Minister for Transport has responsibility for overall policy and Exchequer funding for the national roads programme. Once funding arrangements have been put in place with Transport Infrastructure Ireland under the Roads Acts 1993-2015, and in line with the national development plan, NDP, the planning, design, improvement and upgrading of individual national roads is a matter for TII, in conjunction with the lo…