Frank Feighan (Sligo-Leitrim, Fine Gael) | Oireachtas source

I thank the Senator for raising this important matter for discussion. I am taking this matter on behalf of my colleague, the Minister of State with responsibility for disability matters, Deputy Anne Rabbitte.

The Government remains firmly committed to ensuring the provision of the best possible health and social care services for both children and adults with special needs, whether they are therapy supports, respite, residential care or day services. The Government recognises that children's disability services face significant challenges to provide services in a timely and effective manner. The Minister of State is fully committed to the development and enhancement of children's disability services through the implementation of the progressing disability services, PDS, programme. She recognises this change programme has been challenging for many stakeholders and, in particular, the families of children who require these services urgently. As the Senator will be aware, the Minister of State has met many families and listened to their concerns first-hand to ascertain the issues and drive solutions.

I assure the Senator significant efforts are being made by the HSE to reduce waiting times for children who require all therapy supports, and that objective is a key component of the PDS programme. The full reconfiguration of children's disability services in the children's disability network teams, with a total of 91 CDNTs across nine community healthcare organisations, CHOs, is a positive step. It allows CDNTs to move towards the family-centred practice at the heart of phase 2.

It must be acknowledged that there have been significant challenges in certain parts of the country with the implementation of the PDS programme. There is a challenging environment related to recruitment and retention of staff working in CDNTs, which is affecting the level of service provided in a significant number of teams across the country. However, this is not a resource issue and the Government has provided funding since 2019 to allow the HSE to employ an additional 475 whole-time equivalent posts to increase the capacity of all 91 CDNTs.

The HSE is proactively pursuing a range of options regarding the recruitment of additional staff for the CDNTs and in the first instance this comprised national and international recruitment campaigns to attract those health professionals currently in short supply. In addition, the HSE is exploring options such as sponsorship and expanded use of assistant grades.

I assure the Senator that both the Government and the HSE remains committed to the delivery of appropriate services for children with disabilities and they will work with families and staff to develop services that meet their needs. Having regard to the issue she raised, the HSE has advised that local disability services have allocated development posts for this year to each of the three Kildare CDNTs. In addition, in conjunction with lead agencies, it has commenced a consortium-based recruitment initiative to explore UK and overseas recruitment, if necessary, to fill all development, vacant and maternity posts that it has until now been unsuccessful in filling from recent domestic recruitment campaigns.

The Senator spoke about parents waiting for 18 months and this is seemingly far too long. I will bring those views to the Minister of State.