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

I thank the Deputy for tabling this important Topical Issue matter. I would appreciate it if I could unpack it. If I am listening correctly, the Deputy's question is to do with the HSE and CDNTs, Holy Angels and preschool services; schools and educational psychologists and NEPS. Let me try to unpack it.

With regard to Holy Angels and its receipt of €21,000, the centre is designated under special education in the Department of Education. The funding it received from my Department was a recognition of the service level agreement, SLA, that we have in place between Holy Angels and the HSE. I do not have full control over Holy Angels, rather I have only a portion of control. The Department of Education has a role to play here, in supporting certain bills that are required to be paid, which includes the ESB bill. Maybe the Deputy can assist the management at Holy Angels, in that much of the burden of expense it has encountered over the past number of years was when it lost the community employment, CE, support workers who used to assist it. The loss of those workers meant Holy Angels had to take on additional staff, at a cost. I know, very clearly, Holy Angels has a serious deficit, but I think the deficit is because it may have leaned considerably on the CE scheme workers in the past, who were absolutely brilliant when it came to maintenance and cleaning, but also when it came to the support of an additional staff member in a room. It was more than ratio, it was a support to the individual.

The Deputy spoke about the Education for Persons with Special Educational Needs Act. That sits under the Minister of State, Deputy Madigan. I will not speak to the Minister of State's brief, but I hear clearly what the Deputy is saying, in that we have a deficit when it comes to educational supports for children within education. The Deputy also talked about the 25 trainees and that only for them, children in education may not get the psychological supports they need.

I will refer to my own brief, which is to do with the CDNTs. There are three such teams in County Carlow, with only one psychologist, which is not sufficient by any manner or means. In light of the TV programme that was on last night, it is important to say it was very disturbing viewing. I applaud the Deputy for asking this question, because if we do not have psychologists, we cannot complete our assessments of need. That is a considerable issue for us. However, what I have done is to secure the funding of €11.5 million to clear the backlog of in excess of 10,000 children that are waiting for an assessment of need since 2021. The 2019 figure is educational, because I cleared the backlog. It is gone.

I now have the figure of what has happened due to the preliminary team assessment, PTA, and since the court case last year. We have a build-up of assessment of need, especially with regard to children needing an autism assessment. For 200 children to be sitting on the books of any CDNT is quite disturbing, not just for the child and family, but for the child's development. That is why, having secured the funding, it is my ambition to have regional hubs dealing with assessment of need, to the full criteria that will ensure that every child will be seen in a timely fashion. I will answer on my confidence in the HSE next.

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