Margaret Murphy O'Mahony (Cork South West, Fianna Fail) | Oireachtas source

There is a long standing commitment to provide children's disability network teams across the country. It has been ongoing for some time now. The 2016 HSE service plan said that work is under way in reconfiguring children's disability services into geographically-based children's disability network teams with 56 of the 129 teams reconfigured. It went on to say that "2016 will see the completion of the full reconfiguration of 0–18s disability services into 129 Children’s Disability Network Teams". A total of 56 teams had been reconfigured at the start of 2016 with 129 to be in place at the end of 2016. At the end of 2016, 56 of the promised 129 teams had been reconfigured, so in essence no progress was made. In 2017, the service plan told us that the number of children’s disability network teams to be established by the end of 2017 was 129. At the end of 2017, 56 of the promised 129 teams had been reconfigured, so no progress was made yet again. What is the delay here? Why is it taking so long? Not a single extra team was reconfigured during 2016 or 2017. Have any been reconfigured so far in 2018?

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