Micheál Martin (Cork South Central, Fianna Fail) | Oireachtas source

First, I did meet with the Darmody family and with Cara some time ago. We had a good, frank and very useful discussion in terms of services for children with additional needs, in particular children with autism. I have been very clear on two fronts as there are two aspects to this, the education dimension and the health dimension. I am not satisfied and not happy with the services provided through the HSE in respect of children with autism. It is not at a scale and level that it should be at. It is not a funding issue as the resources have been allocated. The HSE is saying it is a recruitment issue.

When I came into government, I would have had issues with the progressing disability programme, which has been advanced by the HSE now for over a decade but has really only come into additional resources in the last four to five years. I have met with many disability organisations, both service providers and users, to try to get to the bottom of this progressing disability initiative. My view, which I made very clear, is that progressing disability – the Deputy will know this from her own constituency - took therapists out of the special schools to have a general pool available, diluting the service. We made it very clear that we wanted the therapists back working in the special schools as a first step, and that has been agreed, although we are following through on the implementation of that with the HSE. There has been resistance. There are different perspectives on this but I am very clear that in special schools, the multidisciplinary approach is best. I want the therapists in the special schools.

On the education front, over the last two years we have made rapid progress on education in terms of additional special schools, additional special classes and additional resources. We have more to do. We have also legislatively placed an obligation on every single school in the country to do its bit in respect of special needs, and schools have to be fully inclusive in terms of children with special needs and there can be no refusal of children with special needs regarding access to schools. That is also being worked through by the Minister for Education and there is very clear progress to be seen.

The availability of therapies is not satisfactory. I have spoken to different service providers. I want to be balanced here. In some areas, progressing disability seems to be working because there is a lower catchment or a lower number of children or young people being covered by a given area, and the workload seems to be manageable in respect of some CHO areas. In other areas, the load seems to be excessive. The key issue that the HSE raises is the capacity to recruit. I know that is of no consolation to children and families trying to access services.

If we look across the HSE, it has had far greater success in recruiting therapists for a whole range of other services, such as enhanced community care. Indeed, I was at a stroke unit the other day and there was no issue in recruiting therapists for speech and language, physio and so on. In terms of children and the progressing disability area, there seems to be a particular difficulty in recruiting and, indeed, retaining therapists across the board. That is a key issue. I have convened two meetings so far with all of the Ministers responsible for special needs to deal with this issue.

In the interim, we have to develop more accelerated means in terms of assessments of need, both on the clinical side and the services. In the case of Neil, the individual child here, it is a matter of services. The key issue is recruitment of a sufficient number of therapists to provide not just assessment, but interventions for children who require them on an ongoing basis.

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