Joe McHugh (Donegal, Fine Gael) | Oireachtas source

I am delighted the Minister of State, Deputy Rabbitte, is here as I know she is very much on top of her brief. This is evidenced by her presence throughout the country, including Donegal where she has visited a number of facilities in her time as Minister of State.

I raise this issue on behalf of the Special Needs Parents Donegal Network Group. Public representatives met with them yesterday and had a very good meeting. No doubt the Minister of State will have received the information in the brief from her colleague the Minister, Deputy McConalogue, who was there. He will have the report and the very intensive research it contains. One of the figures presented by the HSE yesterday was that there is a 56% vacancy level. The vacancy challenge is not confined to the north west; it exists throughout the country so it is a national crisis. I know that the Minister of State would like people to be in those positions in the morning but we have certain challenges. One mission statement from the parents was that their children cannot wait. Intervention is needed at a very young age, as the Minister of State will agree.

Parents have carried out the research and they have come up with solutions. They live their lives in the here and now. They cannot accept the mantra about waiting on people to apply. As public representatives, we have to challenge the argument that not enough people are available to apply. We have to look at alternatives. These parents, who live their daily lives dealing with their own children with disabilities, have come up with four comprehensive solutions. I know the Minister of State will take this back to her officials. I am asking for these four recommendations to be taken very seriously as part of a bottom-up, grounded, common-sense approach. They contain some very pragmatic suggestions.

One thing that was very evident yesterday was the lack of essential equipment. There are communication difficulties when the time comes to get wheelchairs changed, to get bigger equipment and to get measured and so on. The families of children with complex needs feel they are not receiving regular therapy, support or timely access to equipment. No indication has been given to parents on how this will be managed when there are no therapists on the team. That is the first point.

The second point relates to redeployment. The parents have proposed the redeployment of experienced and skilled resources from other areas. They are not looking to reinvent the wheel; they are looking at what we did during the Covid pandemic when redeployment was a major feature of our approach to the challenge we faced then.

The third recommendation relates to parents who are paying large amounts of money on private therapy. They are calling on the HSE to implement an emergency model to support access to private therapies where support and therapy cannot be provided by the HSE.

The fourth recommendation relates to therapeutic support and guidance for schools. The Minister of State will be aware of the pilot model through the Departments of Education and Health. I was involved in that. I know there is some resistance – I will not say whether it is coming from the Department of Health or the Department of Education – but I feel there is a real opportunity to use that pilot as a way forward and to use occupational therapists, speech and language therapists or physiotherapists to take a more integrated approach to health through our schools as well. I know the Minister of State will agree.

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