Calls are being made for further investment in third level to ensure more child psychologists and psychiatrists are brought into the system.
The appeal from Cork TD Sean Sherlock comes after it was revealed that Cork has the largest waiting list for child psychology in the country.
1,936 children in Cork, up to the age of 18, were on a waiting list at the end of February of this year.
Deputy Sherlock is calling for immediate action and is urging the HSE to ensure these children are accommodated in areas with shorter waiting times.
Speaking to RedFM News he's calling for the shortage of therapeutic professionals, that are required for disability services, to be urgently addressed:
"There is a dramatic shortage in the number of what I would call Speech and Language Therapists, Occupational Therapists and all of the therapeutic professions that are required for disability services. I think, the key to it is to start looking at our own institutions in, you know, the MTU, UCC and seeing how we can develop courses to ensure that we have a throughput of local graduates who will, you know, be the very persons that will be interacting with local children and delivering the therapeutic services".
