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

There is no doubt that we have had challenges with recruiting staff. Funding has been provided. The Deputy has mentioned all the brilliant organisations in his area. When they are working at full tilt in the Cork area, they are providing 10,000 bed nights on an annual basis. That is just Cork alone. He talked about Enable's Lavanagh House. That has not got full capacity yet. It is operating four days out of seven and it is in a position to go to seven out of seven on the provision that it can recruit the staff. To give the parents reassurance we are also looking at adding additional capacity there, not just for children services but also for adult services.

When it comes to respite there is an acute need for higher needs dependencies. With some of the buildings that were procured in the past, when a child accesses the service, it may prevent other children from being in service with them, meaning that a child might only be there on one night. We are looking at doing a two-door model where a child with higher needs will be able to operate in their own apartment, which is part of a house and the other children will be able to operate where there could be three or four in the house.

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