Pauline Tully (Cavan-Monaghan, Sinn Fein) | Oireachtas source

The progressing disabilities model is not working on many fronts. There were 91 CDNTs established before the end of 2021. According to the HSE census from a year ago, only one of those teams was fully staffed. A number were close but quite a number had vacancy rates up to 70%. A team cannot function with a vacancy rate of 70% or even 50% or 30%. Many children have no access to their CDNTs. They wait years for any sort of assessment or service. Two parents' representatives on the national steering group for progressing disabilities, Aisling Byrne and Rebecca O'Riordan, resigned during the summer because they felt they were getting nowhere. They did not go in there because they thought it would be easy, they went in to put forward the point of view of parents and representing their children through the CDNTs. It was not vindictive but they felt it was not set up properly, they were not being listened to and things were not being discussed. They felt it was not going anywhere. They also pointed out that there was no stakeholder involvement in the creation of the roadmap, which is serious. If we want these teams to work, which we all do, we need to include everybody who has a stake in those discussions.

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