Pádraig O'Sullivan (Cork North Central, Fianna Fail) | Oireachtas source

I thank the Minister of State for taking the graveyard shift. I appreciate him being here. Week after week we come into the House to raise matters. On tonight's schedule of Topical Issues, as on many occasions, we are talking about services, be it issues related to Irish Water, as Deputy Michael Moynihan has just alluded to, or in my case, the last three of my Topical Issues have in one way or another been related to the HSE. Here I am again raising the issue of respite care in Cork, specifically for students of the new special school in Carrigaline. While it might not specifically be in my constituency, given the nature of the school, children travel from far and wide to attend it. The unfortunate reality for the parents and their children is that when the school was established it was not assigned a children's disability network, CDN team, so there is no access to therapies or any services unless they are accessed privately. A knock-on impact to that is that the parents have not been able to access respite care either for many of the children for that time and I note the school was established nearly a year ago. Many of the children have different disabilities and challenging behaviours. Unfortunately, the State has completely abandoned them for the past year since the school was established. The State has a responsibility but so too does the HSE. It gets a budget of €20-odd billion every year, yet we are here every week decrying and complaining about the lack of services.

I had a meeting with the Minister of State, Deputy Rabbitte, six months ago in the Vienna Woods Hotel, Glanmire, when she listened to more than 150 families talk about the lack of services in the disability sector. One point was repeated over and over. Many people shared their own personal stories. Nobody should have to go through that in such a fashion where there was a large crowd but these people feel they have to do it because of the issues I referenced earlier. I do not see how we are in a situation here where we have got massive investment in special schools in Cork - we have a second one in the pipeline. In addition, a site is being purchased in my own town of Glanmire. There is a lot of good happening in that sector but the schools are not being accompanied by services. For a new special school not to have the services accompany it is a travesty. In the case of Carrigaline, the school was taken under the patronage of Cork Education and Training Board, ETB, which does fantastic work and is probably the most efficient board of management body in County Cork, it is a travesty not to have the services accompany the school.

Subsequent to the fact that a CDN team was not designated to the special school, the Minister of State, Deputy Rabbitte, met me and Bernard O'Regan of the HSE and a commitment was given that CDN teams would be assigned to all special schools and reinstated. I would appreciate if the Minister of State had an update on the position in that regard. I know it is not specific to the issue of respite, but I would appreciate it if the Minister of State has any information on the matter. I would like to know whether we are at the point where we are advertising those posts. A validation process was undertaken and I understand the HSE has done that work but I would appreciate if the Minister of State has any information that would shed light on the matter.

To return to the issue of respite raised in the Topical Issue matter, these are people with challenging behaviours. The parents need a break and, from what I am hearing on the ground, they are doing well if they can get access to a couple of nights of respite in a year. I would appreciate any information the Minister of State has on the matter.

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