Hildegarde Naughton (Galway West, Fine Gael)

There is a huge priority in regard to recruitment and retention within children's disability network teams, CDNTs, right across the country. As the Deputy probably knows, there was an increase of 17% in the CDNT workforce from 2023 to 2024, which amounts to the recruitment of 272 whole-time equivalent staff. That said, we need to do much more. International and domestic recruitments processes are under way, we have bursaries for postgraduate students and we have outreach into secondary schools and higher education authorities to raise awareness of the valuable work done by people in the disability sector. My door is open if the Deputy has any ideas for increasing staffing in this area.

It is an absolute top priority for me and my Government colleagues to make sure we have the therapists in place. The Deputy knows about the in-school therapies the Minister, Deputy McEntee, is rolling out right across the country in special schools and, eventually, in special classes in mainstream schools. Work is ongoing in a range of areas. In higher education, we have 150 extra therapists going through our third level institutions. We are also looking at therapy assistants and how we can upskill people through apprenticeships within the therapy space.

See this speech in context