Oireachtas Joint and Select Committees
Thursday, 27 April 2023
Joint Oireachtas Committee on Disability Matters
Rights-Based Approach and Disability Legislation: Discussion
Mr. Jason Doran:
There is no doubt but that the situations in the CDNTs is at a critical stage. Every Deputy and Senator here will have heard that from people. We certainly hear it in the Department. The Minister of State, Deputy Rabbitte, has heard it too.
On immediate measures, the Deputy will be aware of the finalisation of the roadmap. The latter contains a significant number of actions across seven different categories, one of which is recruitment and retention. We are focusing in on that as the key enabler in getting therapies for children. There are a number of specific actions in that. One that will be of assistance more immediately is a working group involving our Department, the Departments of Health, Education and Further and Higher Education, Research, Innovation and Science to examine short-term courses that could upskill people to assist with CDNTs. Potentially, these would be conversion courses for SNAs and assistants with therapy grades to upskill in those areas as the most immediate measure we can implement in order to provide some relief to overstretched and understaffed CDNTs.
As part of the measures that were undertaken last year through the Department of Enterprise, Trade and Employment, we were able to add a number of key disciplines onto the critical skills list which had not been there before. These are being actively recruited for at the moment. The disciplines in question are occupation therapy, physiotherapy, psychology and speech and language therapy. They were added in June 2022. That broadens the scope for international recruitment beyond the EU and gives wider access to the pool of candidates.
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