Anne Rabbitte (Galway East, Fianna Fail) | Oireachtas source

I thank the Ceann Comhairle for selecting this issue and for giving me to the opportunity to respond. I also thank the Deputy for putting this Topical Issue matter down for debate. From the outset, I wish to acknowledge that there have been considerable challenges in certain parts of the country in the implementation of the PDS programme by the HSE. This has resulted in delays for families to access much-needed therapies for their children. I, of course, regret that and I wish to put on the record my sincerest apologies to any family experiencing such delays. I have only just come off the telephone with the HSE and, as such, my script has changed.

There are 12 teams in the area that the Deputy has mentioned in the south east. These 12 teams are made up of one which is led by Enable Ireland, based in Kilkenny. One is led by the Central Remedial Clinic, CRC, which is for the Waterford south city location. The other ten areas are led by the HSE, which comprise Carlow, Thomastown, Enniscorthy, Cashel, Clonmel, Dungarvan, Waterford north city, New Ross, Gorey and Wexford. The whole-time-equivalent staff complement working within all of that area is 168.15. There are vacancies there at present. When I refer to vacancies, the Deputy should be aware that I am talking about people who are on maternity, sick or parental leave or shared time which is 40. The number of complex needs children is 4,600.

I refer to active recruitment in the context of 2021 and the funding I provided in phases 1 and 2 and the special schools. It comes to 16.05 in terms of whole-time equivalent staff. In that regard, staff have been recruited to only three of the new additional posts that I allocated to CHO 5. That is not down to a lack of funding. The funding is there. Three staff have been recruited and there is a shortage of 13.05 whole-time equivalent staff. In addition, 40 staff are on various types of leave. That is a considerable number of individuals missing from key posts within the various groups.

That is not to take away from the work being done at present. I compliment the staff who are there on the front line and who have helped with delivering assessments of need in the past 12 months. The reconfiguration took place on 27 September 2021. For the three months beforehand, access was determined taking account of what was closest to your school or your address and families had a choice in all of that. I compliment the Minister of State, Deputy Butler, because she brought to my attention that the access was not working and that on the Dungarvan side, for example, people were getting notified that they must choose a particular location. We changed that to give parents the choice of closest to home or to the school. That is an overshot from an operational point of view in terms of exactly where we are at this moment in terms of the progressing disability services, PDS, model being rolled out in the south east.

The recruitment is being progressed as a matter of urgency by the HSE national recruitment services, and directly in the case of section 39 lead agencies, to support network teams to optimise service delivery. The area represented by the Deputy is in a fortunate position because ten of the teams are run by the HSE. Only two of the teams are section 39 groupings. The complete control, ownership, power, direction and sense of travel all rest completely with the HSE. It knows exactly what the service level provision is. It sends that in. It is in control of the direction of travel. This model of PDS is one it has designed and implemented and has been ongoing since 2014. I have just finished a phone call with Gobnait Ní Chrualaoí of CoAction in Cork who was part and parcel of the setting up of it at the very beginning. There is nothing new here for the HSE. It is just that, as part of the reconfiguration, the transfer of files took longer than would have been optimal. Communication has not been of the best quality but I am confident that now that we have reconfigured, communication will improve.

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