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

I do not know whether to start with the opening or concluding statement at this point. I have an answer but I would like to give the Senator the opening piece on the HSE first. I will then show how I have intervened, as a follow-up to the emails and the conversation the Senator and I had at back of the Chamber last Monday, and the work that has happened in the last four days. The Senator must recognise that what I have been trying to do in four days actually started in 2016. I am coming in at the tail end of a project that has started and been unleashed. I am now trying to manage it. I will put it in that context. I will read the opening script, which outlines where we have been over and back with the HSE prior to my intervention. It is important that I put this on the record because it gives parents who are watching an understanding of how we have come to this space. I will then address the issue about which the Senator has asked. I thank her for giving me the opportunity to do this.

In October 2017, the national progressing disability services, PDS, working group signed off on the report it had received from the national advisory group on specialist supports for deaf children. The report recommended a model of national specialist support to be delivered through a three-tiered approach: training for front-line staff in primary care and children's disability network teams; consultation with staff regarding individual children; and individual specialist assessment only in the very small number of instances when all efforts for assessing a child's needs have been unsuccessful.

The proposed model, as outlined, is in line with the PDS model and the 2016 report regarding guidance on specialist supports. A working group was subsequently formed under the integrated care programme for children to focus on services for children who are deaf and hard of hearing. The national PDS steering group was represented on this group. The findings and recommendations of the PDS national advisory group informed the deliberations of the working group. The national working group for integrated care for children who are deaf or hard of hearing incorporated the relevant PDS recommendations regarding specialist support into its draft report. A draft version of the group's report was circulated in March 2020. However, the subsequent onset of the Covid-19 pandemic has interrupted the work of the group. It is expected that the group will resume its work as soon as practically possible.

At this intervention, it is important for me to say that the remodelling of the PDS network has started and is rolling out. We are still going to reconfigure to have a meeting of the steering group. Therefore, the horse has bolted on this one. I am trying to get a hold of it at the moment. I acknowledge and totally understand the concern, upset and frustration of the parents and staff in the school about which the Senator spoke. I would like to be able to tell her that this school is an isolated incident, but we have many of these schools around the country. Certain things are happening and the programme is being rolled out. As the Senator will be aware, the HSE is currently rolling out the PDS programme, which requires a reconfiguration of all current HSE and HSE-funded children's disability services into 91 children's disability networks across the nine community healthcare organisations, CHOs.

The programme aims to achieve an equitable national approach to service provision for all children based on their individual need and regardless of their disability, where they live or where they go to school. A really positive piece of work is going on right across the country. The reconfiguration of services under the PDS programme is in line with the health service reform and implementation of community health networks under Sláintecare. I have discussed the issue of the PDS with the HSE a number of times over the past week to air some of my concerns, which have been brought to my attention by parents and Members of the Oireachtas. I believe the PDS is the best way forward. I have more to contribute in my concluding remarks, but I get the Senator's point.