Speech and language therapy students at the National University of Ireland Galway (NUIG), have accused Minister for Health Mary Harney, of failing to provide adequate employment opportunities for graduates.
According to final year students of the BSc Speech and Language Therapy degree course at NUIG, the Health Service Executive (HSE) plans to employ only 25 basic grade therapists in 2007.
However, with almost 100 students due to qualify this year, from new courses at NUIG and University College Cork, a masters programme at University of Limerick and from an existing undergraduate course at Trinity College Dublin, they fear there will be too few positions available within the Republic's health service for many of the new graduates.
"From a student and service-user's point of view, the decision to limit the number of employment opportunities for a new generation of speech and language therapists is a lost opportunity for qualitatively improving such services within the Irish health sector," the students said.
Following the recommendations of the 2002 Bacon Report, which reported on future manpower needs within the health service, the Government invested in third level education for health professionals. Despite current waiting times of up to two years for such therapies and with a substantial increase in the number of therapists ready for employment within the health service in 2007, the HSE has yet to establish how many posts will be available for graduates.
Asked to comment on the number of basic grade positions that will be available to newly qualified therapists, a spokesperson for HSE told The Irish Times, "The process of identifying work locations of the additional posts and appropriate grading is currently ongoing and from this the staffing requirements . . . will be identified. The emphasis will be on ensuring a sufficient balance of grades to allow for posts to be filled at basic grade level.
"There is a disproportionate balance of grades within some of the therapy professions . . . resulting in fewer opportunities for graduate therapists. However the HSE and the Department of Health and Children are currently working with the professional bodies and the staff representative organisation (IMPACT) to ensure that employment opportunities exist for graduate therapists."
Due to the limited number of graduates available prior to this year, the HSE has been experiencing ongoing problems filling therapy positions. It has recently undertaken an international recruitment drive aimed at employing 12 senior occupational therapists and 20 senior speech and language therapists from outside the Republic.
These new recruits are for existing vacancies that have remained unfilled following the normal recruitment process. The HSE has confirmed that it doesn't intend to recruit basic grade therapists from the international market.