Mary Seery Kearney (Fine Gael) | Oireachtas source

I applaud the Minister of State's extremely hard and diligent work and how accessible her office is. Noel Byrne is a saint. He is just fantastic. Last week, the Joint Committee on Disability Matters heard from Helen Holmes from the Campaign for Autism Inclusion Dublin 12. Among the many issues she raised, she discussed the issues in CHO 7 where there are two CDNTS - one in Dublin 8 and the other in Dublin 12. It was at the public meeting with the Minister of State that it came out that the HSE was refusing to attend those meetings. The staffing for these two network teams is at an extremely low level. There is a worrying turnover of staff. Between the two, there is a vacancy for three psychologists, two psychotherapists, two speech and language therapists, one occupational therapist and one dietician. Staff sick leave is not covered, the effect on any continuity of services to children is devastating and when staff renews, the service to the child must start over to accommodate the knowledge transfer to new hires. A total of 56% of affected families in Dublin 8 and Dublin 12 are without any services. Of those who have services, 20% have had only one initial meeting, 8% are attending a parent course and the children of 16% are attending play therapy interventions. It is an appalling crisis for children and their families and, therefore, it would certainly appear that the recruitment model is not fit for purpose and the resources are not being targeted where the need is felt.

There is a complete dearth of metrics. This leads on to the issue of child places in school. If we have not done an assessment of need and do not have the metrics on the sheer level of need among children because they are not being engaged in services, how are they going to be properly placed in schools and how are there going to be proper placements in schools or in the right schools? It has a knock-on effect way beyond that.

Last February, Mr. Reid very kindly took a call from me regarding a one-parent family with a terminally ill child with complex needs. He was fantastic, as was the response from the team. However, the mother was in a situation where her child had come home after a brief respite in hospice care. Insufficient nursing hours were allocated to her and most nights, she was nursing her child alone in the middle of night. The child is not young and has serious needs. The additional nursing hours had to go out to tender rather than the service in which the child was engaged being extended because of governance issues with the agency nurses. There was an expectation that the nurses would transfer from one service to another to provide the additional hours, which is in complete disregard of those nurses' employment rights.

They were expected to relinquish their service, but that is a whole other issue. We are in the month of June. The agency that won the tender has still not supplied the nurses to the mother. The child has a life-limiting condition, and only has weeks or months - at the most - to live. The mother is still caring for the child. When the nurse did show up for partial cover of those hours, she could not be left alone. The mother could not even go to the shop. All other support for the family has to be provided by neighbours. To be perfectly honest, the system is a disgrace. I applaud parents for their dignity and the fact that they are not more vocal and extreme. Ms Helen Holmes came in here last week and was so dignified in her responses and her contribution. The situation is appalling. At a meeting of the Joint Committee on Children, Equality, Disability, Integration and Youth a number of months ago, we heard that it is going to take years for the recruitment issue to be fixed. That is just appalling for the children who need the care in the here and now.