Simon Harris (Wicklow, Fine Gael) | Oireachtas source

I thank the Deputy for raising this important issue, an issue that I know is close to all our hearts and indeed all our priorities. I note the Sinn Féin Private Members' motion on the matter this week, which applies an appropriate degree of focus to this very important issue. We have taken a number of steps in recent weeks alone to try to make significant progress in the lives of children with a disability. We launched a new autism innovation strategy. We commenced the restoration of in-school therapy supports for children in special schools. The Deputy spoke about Jaden and while I do not know all of Jaden's needs, it is important that we put the therapies back in schools so that the education system and the health system work much more closely together. We have provided the funding for that.

We have also quite rightly provided a significant degree of additional funding to procure additional assessments of need, the issue that the Deputy rightly highlighted. I think the Labour Party tabled in this House a Private Members' motion on this quite a while ago, inspired by Cara Darmody, looking for us to use private capacity and support the use of the private sector. We have tried to do that, albeit in a slightly different way, but now procuring capacity in the private sector as well as the public sector to significantly increase the number of assessments of need, which I will come to in a moment. We have published a new €15 million respite investment plan. Quite rightly as Sinn Féin called for in its Private Members' motion, we have also agreed under the leadership of the Minister, Deputy O'Gorman, to opt into the optional protocol to the UN Convention on the Rights of Persons with Disabilities.

I am very clear we need to do a lot more on disability services. I get that and I appreciate that. That is why we now see for the first time additional funding bringing the disability services budget for next year to more than €3 billion with a total allocation of €3.2 billion. This represents an increase of €1.2 billion in funding for disability services in Ireland in five years. It is a record allocation. It will ensure that more people can access more disability services more quickly. It also recognises a number of the pay pressures the Deputy referenced in terms of service providers.

Specifically on the issue of assessment of needs, I will say a couple of things. First, we have placed a real focus on this. In May, we announced a decision to finance an assessment of need waiting list initiative through the procurement of private assessments that I referenced. That is now working. In the first half of this year, we saw a 28% increase in the number of assessments of needs completed when compared with the same period last year. The campaign led by Cara Darmody is making a difference and showing the positive impact we can have by spending taxpayers' money rightly on using private capacity to go alongside public capacity. A total of 1,092 additional children had assessments of need commissioned from private providers and assessors during the months of June, July and August. There have been 1,092 more assessments done as a result of that decision we took in May. I am very pleased that because it is working we allocated a further €10 million in our budget only a few weeks ago to continue this initiative into next year and to expand the scope of it as well.

Work is also ongoing to increase the capacity of our children's disability network teams through several recruitment campaigns. Currently these teams, called CDNTs, are providing services and supports for more than 46,000 children. Disability services were protected during the HSE recruitment embargo. While recruitment and retention of staff is a challenge, significant work is ongoing to fill vacant posts on each of the 93 CDNTs. It is positive that we see the number of people now working in teams increasing year-on-year and the disability workforce increasing year-on-year as well.

New posts have also been funded in the budget for CDNTs, namely, 20 senior-grade and 20 staff-grade therapists, and 20 therapy assessments.

The second point I will make is this. We need to have a very honest conversation around how we respond to that decision in relation to court and the court judgment. I very much respect the independence of the court but from a policy point of view I do not agree that the laws of our land should dictate such rigidity with regard to the length of time an assessment of needs requires. That is not just my view; it is the view of countless parents and disability representative organisations across this country.

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