Aidan Farrelly (Kildare North, Social Democrats)
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113. To ask the Minister for Children, Equality, Disability, Integration and Youth if she will outline her plans to reform and improve the provision of children’s disability network teams, as outlined in the programme for Government. [8145/25]

Aidan Farrelly (Kildare North, Social Democrats)
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I wish the Minister and the Minister of State well in their roles. Will the Minister of State outline her plans to reform and improve the provision of children's disability network teams as outlined in the programme for Government?

Hildegarde Naughton (Galway West, Fine Gael)
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I thank the Deputy for his question. The Government is committed to providing early intervention services to children with disabilities and their families as referenced in the programme for Government. A total of €3.2 billion has been allocated for disability services in budget 2025. This is an 11.6% increase on 2024 and represents an overall increase since 2020 of €1.2 billion. This increase will support the roll-out of the roadmap for service improvement for disabilities, including services for children and young people, through the provision of key roles and trainee placements for children's disability network teams.

As we know, the demand for CDNT services is growing every year and the progressing disabilities services, PDS, roadmap 2023-2026, which was launched by the HSE in October 2023, focuses on the ongoing development of CDNT services to meet current and growing demand. The PDS model is a needs-led model of service, where a child does not require a diagnosis to access services. CDNTs provide a multidisciplinary assessment of individuals' needs and strengths. Currently, 42,000 children are receiving services through the CDNTs. We know the delivery of services to children is inherently linked to the staffing levels in the CDNTs and their capacity to deliver these services. The Government has provided funding for additional posts to enhance the capacity of CDNTs in recent years. The HSE has advised there was a net addition of 272 staff in CDNTs in 2024, which is a 17% increase compared with 2023.

Funding has been made available in 2025 for children's services to build on these existing recruitment initiatives, with funding focusing on various positions across the CDNTs, including 20 senior therapist posts, 20 staff grade posts, 20 health and social care assistant posts and 15 clinical trainee posts.

Under the new programme for Government, we will work to increase staff, train more therapists and enable targeted supports for CDNTs. Through these concerted efforts, we will be able to have a more robust workforce in the future to meet the growing demand from families and children.

Aidan Farrelly (Kildare North, Social Democrats)
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We received a response this week to a parliamentary question on the issue, in which the HSE cites staff vacancy as one of the major issues. That aligns with what the Minister of State says about being able to work with as many children and young people as possible in the State.

Are we confident that we are maximising workforce opportunities from the point of view of third level education and in terms of those who are living abroad? From a Kildare perspective, some CDNTs have a 40% vacancy rate and 2,600 children are on waiting lists, 1,900 of whom are waiting more than 12 months for an intervention. That is notwithstanding the phenomenal work that happens once people can engage with the service. That is the story in so many regards. Is there anything more we can do to ensure those delays are minimised to really hone in on early intervention where possible?

Hildegarde Naughton (Galway West, Fine Gael)
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In regard to early intervention, it is worth noting that in education, the access and inclusion model, AIM, is in place to support children with additional needs to access and meaningfully participate in early learning and childcare by providing universal supports to preschool settings generally and targeted supports based on the needs of the individual without requiring a diagnosis.

The Deputy asked what we are doing regarding recruitment, both domestically and in the international field as well. We are trying to recruit. As he is aware, recruitment and retention are a challenge across all sectors, but in particular this sector, and a significant focus of the Government is filling the vacant posts within the 93 CDNTs. To optimise the recruitment into funded agencies, the HSE is facilitating direct access for funded agencies to existing HSE health and social care professional panels, which will shorten the recruitment process. In addition, our Department is working with the HSE to seek to introduce specific recruitment and retention incentives for therapists to work in CDNTs, along with the CDNT sponsorship programme, which has bursaries for fourth year and postgraduate students linked to acceptance of job offers. We are also expanding places in higher education facilities. We have an extra 150 therapists now going through the third level system.

Aidan Farrelly (Kildare North, Social Democrats)
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I appreciate the Minister of State's response. That level of detail is very welcome. I offer the full support of the Social Democrats in progressing this in whatever way we can in terms of policy. This is incredibly important. We have spoken quite often in the Chamber in recent weeks about SET and disability services. There is an intersectionality between the two. It is not just about the level of care within the CDNT, as there is an impact on education and housing. It is cross-sectional throughout society.

I appreciate the commitments the Minister of State has made here this evening and in the programme for Government. I look forward to continuing the dialogue with the Minister and the Minister of State in regard to that in the coming months and years. I reassure them of our support. We must maximise the encouragement of ways in which we can bring in staff. That will be the best way to reduce waiting times and ensure children get timely services.

Hildegarde Naughton (Galway West, Fine Gael)
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I thank Deputy Farrelly for his support in this regard. My door is open as well if there are any good ideas. We do not have the monopoly on solutions and my door is fully open in that regard. This is about ongoing recruitment.

We have also been looking at what else we can do. There may be people working in other disciplines within the health sector who want to become therapists and could be upskilled. We must look at everything we can do. It is also about retention and pay. I get all of that. That is a key part of this as well. We must make sure there is a pipeline for the future given that disability is growing, not just here in Ireland but internationally, and we must also make sure we plan for the future so that we have the workforce coming in as well.