Denis Naughten (Roscommon-Galway, Independent) | Oireachtas source

It is no secret that children's disability services are at breaking point. However, the sheer scale of the problem is shocking when you learn that almost 800 vacancies exist in children's therapy services across the HSE's primary care services and children's disability network teams.

Those 800 vacancies exist across physiotherapy, occupational therapy, speech and language therapy and psychology, with over 550 vacancies in the children's disability network teams and over 440 vacancies in the primary care services. This means that not alone are children enduring waiting lists for services, but they are also facing inordinate waits for assessment.

On his return to office, the Taoiseach told the Dáil that: "Our vision is to make Ireland the best country in Europe to be a child." Unfortunately, the reality is that unless drastic action is taken, that statement simply will not apply to children with a disability. I will give one example. John, who is non-verbal, has just completed junior infants and in the almost five months since he was diagnosed, not alone has he not received any form of service or speech therapy, but his family have not even been assigned a key contact. They have been informed that the children's disability network team assigned to him can "only facilitate critical clinical needs as they arise". How can anyone stand over a situation like this?

It goes further, because on top of this, we have an eircode injustice. The service a child receives is not based on disability, but on eircode. While the number of therapy hours provided by the children's disability network team covering south Roscommon increased by 55% in 2022, the number of such hours provided by the corresponding team for north Roscommon decreased by 26% in the same period, providing over a thousand hours less than its counterpart. We need to look urgently at the issues surrounding training, recruitment and retention, not just in terms of future needs, but also the needs of thousands of children today, who are currently deteriorating on waiting lists across this country.

I accept that there are difficulties with recruitment, but that is why we need to take a more flexible approach in our recruitment and retention of therapists. Across the children's disability network teams, almost 100 vacancies are unfilled because staff are on maternity leave. These are vacancies that did not arise without significant notice, yet it appears maternity leave cover remains unrecognised and unfunded within our disability services and across our health services. It is not custom and practice to backfill these vacancies. This has to stop.

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