Leading children's charity Barnardos is calling for the recruitment of 100 speech and language therapists.
It's after new figures showed more than 37,000 people are waiting for therapy.
The majority of those waiting are children.
Head of Advocacy at Barnardos June Tinsley says the HSE must act on the issue.
"It came up in [the] Sláintecare [report] as well. There needs to be an additional investment in speech and language therapy right across the country.
"The suggestion was that we need to invest €5million to recruit another 100 speech and language therapists across the country. That's what's definitely needed at the get-go.
"We need to ensure there's greater availability of speech and language therapists in community settings, as opposed to in public hospitals.
"The HSE also needs to review its own terms and conditions of employment to make it attractive to work in the public service."
