Emer Currie (Fine Gael) | Oireachtas source

The Minister of State with responsibility for disability services, Deputy Rabbitte, has described community healthcare organisation, CHO, 9, which covers Dublin West, as the most challenging of all areas when it comes to implementing reforms under the progressing disability services, PDS, programme. The children's disability network team, CDNT, in my area either cannot give a timeframe for when a child will be seen or it is saying it could take up to three years. In October, the Minister of State advised me there were 96 posts to fill across CHO 9 in speech and language therapy, occupational therapy and psychology. That represented an improvement from having 50% of posts filled to a 74% rate of posts filled. This week, I checked the figures for Dublin West. In Blanchardstown CDNT, 23% of the whole-time equivalent positions are unfilled. In Blakestown, the figure is 44%, and it is 48% in Cabra. An additional 29 whole-time equivalent staff are needed.

I do not need to tell the Minister of State the impact this has on families and schools. We saw it in the reports yesterday from the National Principals Forum, detailing principals' lack of confidence in the ability of the National Council for Special Education, NCSE, to provide for children with additional educational needs. There are periods when there are no special educational needs organisers, SENOs, or National Educational Psychological Service, NEPS, psychologists appointed to individual schools. We have seen a delay in the reinstatement of therapies in special schools because the CDNTs are overwhelmed. Money is being thrown at this problem but when qualified people are just not there to fill the posts, we have another problem. An additional factor is that there are people who do not want to work for the HSE.

I commend the Minister for Further and Higher Education, Research, Innovation and Science, Deputy Harris, on his vision for transforming third level education. He is blowing up the pathways for learners to give them better opportunities and address skills shortages. He is putting a working group, a hub and new courses behind this strategy. Provision for training in therapies must be part of that effort. Another point to consider is that people's ability to find their purpose in life should not be based only on the points they get in the leaving certificate examination. There are many people, including parents, who have experience of these issues. Some of them have a vocation later in life to work in these areas. There should be the possibility to transfer from courses that offer some foundational experience.

In the case of psychology, 28% of posts in CDNTs are unfilled. The Psychological Society of Ireland has stated that another 322 psychologists are needed in the context of workforce planning. We need those places to be filled. The Minister is delivering them in medicine but they are also needed across clinical services, counselling and educational psychology. We must address the inequity in funding in those areas.