Jennifer Murnane O'Connor (Carlow-Kilkenny, Fianna Fail) | Oireachtas source

I thank the Minister of State, Deputy Rabbitte, for coming in to take this Topical Issue matter. We have considerable issues in community healthcare area, CHO, 5, especially in County Carlow. The children's disability network team, CDNT, in Carlow has more than 200 children on the waiting list for autism assessments. The children are taken off the list by the CDNT, per date order, unless prioritised as high-risk. These children are getting lost and we do something urgently about it. A facility in Carlow, which looks after children with special needs, has children scheduled to attend primary school in September who have never seen a therapist, or had any assessment of need. Holy Angels in Carlow has operated for more than four decades and has never experienced this lack of service. County Carlow is operating with one psychologist for the entire county and the psychologist has very little support. That facility is on its knees with regard to funding. It was allocated €21,000 for emergency support but its gas bill alone was €29,000. The facility is really struggling.

There are other considerable issues in special needs supports for children in CHO 5. Just last month, trainee educational and child psychologists undertook independent work in schools, under supervision of the senior psychologists throughout the country. In practice, this meant they were in schools by themselves, working on cases that are part of the caseload and were responsible for this. It included undertaking assessments of learning needs, identifying dyslexia, dyscalculia and other issues, solutions-based work with teachers and parents, or interventions around children's learning and emotional or behavioural needs. If the 25 trainees were not there to do this work throughout the country, the already overworked National Educational Psychological Service, NEPS, psychologists would have to take on these cases. The waiting times for assessments would be even longer. They receive no financial reimbursements, other than the reduced rate of petrol expenses for travelling, which is another story. I wish to address that with the Minister of State the next day.

All children must have the opportunity to thrive and have access to an educational assessment of needs; the development of an individual education plan; the delivery of education supports and an independent appeals process. Schools must be fully accessible for all. We are waiting for a new chief nursing officer, CNO, for Carlow and I will ask the Minister of State to look at that, too. We are seeing considerable delays in assessments. Some assessments from 2019 are only being looked at now, in 2023. I know the Minister of State is aware that recruitment is a considerable issue. The already overworked staff are just not able to get to the work. All the benefits of early intervention are being lost.

I see these issues with my own eyes. Last week, I held a public meeting to assist the community to make submissions for the departmental review on educational needs, for children with special needs. I wanted to hear from families living the reality of this. The stories I heard were horrific. In one case, a child has no access to occupational therapy, OT, speech and language therapy, or assessment of need, even though his needs are acute in the school. We cannot give children the correct access education, if they are not being met. We need to sort out the recruitment and the system has to work for every child. We need urgent attention for children's health services in CHO 5 in Carlow. Will the Minister of State confirm that the CHO has resources?

I also have to ask whether she has confidence in the HSE that these services will be delivered. We have children who are really suffering and families who are crying out for help. Parents have come to me very upset, because their children are not accessing the service they need.

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