Where will I find a job when I graduate?

Careers in Speech and Language Therapy

Speech and language therapists in Ireland work in a wide variety of settings, reflecting the range of communication disorders that people can be subject to. Many work in community settings where most of their clients will be pre-school children who are having difficulty acquiring speech, language or both. Some will work in hospital settings, where they will go on the wards to see individuals who have just had strokes, assessing their level of language disability, or retraining feeding and swallowing, depending on the functions which are affected. Others still may work in residential settings or voluntary agencies such as the Brothers of Charity, Cope Foundation and Enable Ireland.  Experienced therapists may also work in private practice.

Until 2003, if a student wished to train as a speech and language therapist, s/he had to attend the course at Trinity College Dublin. However, following the publication of the Bacon report in 2001, pointing out the shortfalls in service provision in the clinical therapies in this country, the Government has funded new undergraduate courses in speech and language therapy at Cork and Galway, and a new graduate entry course in Limerick. These are designed to meet the shortfall in speech and language therapy provision. There should be many interesting career opportunities for graduates of these courses in the years ahead.