Pauline Tully (Cavan-Monaghan, Sinn Fein) | Oireachtas source

There is a need for a cross-departmental strategy on workforce planning. A clear plan on training, recruitment and retention of sufficient health and social care staff is required. The HSE needs to discuss this with the professional organisations that represent the various therapists and health professionals in the CDNTs. At present, it is refusing to engage with them, and there are things that can help to address the issues there. We need to take everybody on board and look at everything.

We also need a fully costed and time-bound implementation strategy for disability services. We have a disability capacity review and it identified significant unmet need. There is no point in conducting reviews if we are not going to address their findings.

The Minister of State mentioned another element of the PDS model that has not been enacted, which is the family forums. I welcome the fact that they are going to be established. Parents need input into the teams and to be fully informed of what is happening. At present, they are not. What they are being offered are online courses. Many parents have already taken the courses. However, they are basically being threatened that if they do not take the courses, they will be removed from the list. That is terrible. It should not be happening. Parents have welcomed the courses alongside therapeutic intervention from a professional, but not as an alternative. Parents are not trained therapists.

Last year, the Minister of State paused the removal of therapists from special schools, but I am informed that the therapists have been removed. They might be engaging with the schools, but they are not engaging with the students. They are engaging with the staff. It is not on the same level that it was. Again, some are pointing out that there was no risk assessment taken of doing this.

We need to see waiting lists published. There must be comprehensive lists of who is waiting on assessments, who is waiting for interventions and so forth. I feel we are not being told the truth about it. Also, as I mentioned earlier, the Government must recommence, without delay, the reporting of data and publication of reports, pursuant to section 13 of the Act, so that it can plan for unmet need.

All the teams must have clear targets and performance indicators. There must be ongoing checks on how the service is operating. Outcomes must be measured. Otherwise, how will we know if the services are working? People need to be held accountable if the outcomes are not being met. The idea behind the establishment of the CDNTs was to ensure quicker access to services for children with more complex needs, but that is not happening. The ones with less complex needs are supposed to go to primary care and those in need of mental health supports were supposed to go to CAMHS. What we find is all the HSE bodies fighting among themselves for staff and saying, "We will not support that child. That child should go to your service or to your service". That is not fair, and children are being left out in the cold.

The Minister of State mentioned that there will be more senior posts, but the PTA is a huge problem for senior clinicians. They do not agree with it and I cannot see her getting them into the teams while it remains. I apologise for going over time.

See this speech in context