A significant number of children in Longford are on the waiting list in primary care for occupational therapy, OT. The senior OT post has been vacant since January 2025. Despite all the necessary paperwork having been submitted to the integrated healthcare area, IHA, manager who is responsible for approvals, a recent staff grade position has been approved. The complexity of needs of children on the primary care list requires experienced clinicians to support staff grades. When will we be in a position to fill this role, which is needed? As I say, there has been a 12-month delay in the recruitment for this essential post, which is there to address what is a substantial, long waiting list and, indeed, long waiting times for families.

I thank Deputy Carrigy for raising this important issue in relation to Longford. I cannot speak about the individual position because I have only just become aware of it but I will find out for the Deputy. More broadly, it is not acceptable to have vacant positions. We have vacancies in the health service and we need them to be filled. We need that for the supports that children in particular need. However, I would point to the fact that I asked the CEO of the HSE to put specific measures in place to address OT, speech and language therapy and physiotherapy waiting lists and reduce them to less than ten months. We started that initiative in quarter 4 of 2025 and I am pleased to say that the primary care therapies lists declined by approximately 15,000 between September 2025 and November 2025. This is an important reduction but that can only be expedited and augmented if we are recruiting for positions such as the one the Deputy described. I will follow up on it and find out what is happening.