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

First, and I think Maddie is the child's name, it is not acceptable that we do not have sufficient early intervention teams in place for children at an early age. I say this because I accept the principle that early intervention makes a profound difference in a child's life and in the outcome for a child in terms of any particular need or issue that exists. The Cabinet agreed last week to accelerate an assessment of need waiting list initiative through the procurement of private assessments for families who have been waiting for a long time, with about 2,300 assessments of need being funded. There has been an additional allocation of about €11 million. This is to deal specifically with the assessment of need issue.

As the Deputy said, there has also been a substantial recruitment campaign run by the HSE in respect of the CDNTs. Some 165 new job offers have now emerged from that competition. There has been an issue in respect of recruitment more generally. This is the case notwithstanding the fact that over the last three budgets funding has been allocated for almost 800 whole-time-equivalent posts in our CDNTs across the country. We have also provided about 227 additional training places for health and social care professionals. The number of trainee posts for psychological roles has been increased to 45 annually for the next three years. We will continue to do everything we can to deal with the assessment of need issue. There was the recent decision in the High Court in this regard. We are going to have to examine this decision and the Oireachtas will have to do so too in terms of getting a system in place that will facilitate a meaningful but more timely assessment of need process for children.

Additionally, there is a need for there to be proper multidisciplinary teams with wide geographic reach to intervene and provide interventions on a continuous basis to children who require them. The assessment of need regional hubs have been rolled out across the country and are now operational. They are undertaking assessment of needs assessments. The Minister of State, Deputy Rabbitte has met with the heads of disability services in the nine CHOs monthly to monitor and discuss the progress being made in tackling the overall assessment of need backlog issue. Of course, disability services has a derogation in respect of recruitment and so on. There is no issue there. In the short term, to answer the Deputy's question, we made this additional allocation last week from the Cabinet of €11 million to accelerate assessments of need for up to 2,300 children and maybe close to 2,500 children.

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