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

I thank Senator Murphy for raising this important issue. As Minister of State with responsibility in this matter, I wish to be completely clear that the development of any child with a disability to reach his or her full potential remains a matter of utmost importance to the Government. I am committed to further developing and enhancing our children's disability services through the implementation of the progressing disability services, PDS, roadmap for service improvement.

I acknowledge the difficulty facing children and young people with disabilities, and the frustration borne by their families, as the Senator clearly articulated, in accessing the appropriate therapists to provide the necessary supports they require due to vacancies in our health service. I assure the House of my determination to address these issues. Currently, there are ongoing challenges in the recruitment and retention of staff across the whole healthcare sector, particularly the therapy professionals required in children's disability services. This national issue is mirrored by a global shortage of healthcare professionals. The 2022 children's disability network team, CDNT, staff census notes an average vacancy rate of 34% across the nine community healthcare organisations, CHOs. In Roscommon, as per the data available at the end of 2023, the vacancy rate is exactly 34%, with ten whole-time equivalent, WTE, vacancies and a caseload of 770 children.

I assure the Senator that the HSE's national recruitment division will continue to explore a range of options to enhance the recruitment and retention of staff to CDNTs. The HSE's "Be part of our team, be part of their lives" campaign, launched in December and January, is the first nationwide CDNT campaign focusing on the recruitment of dietitians, occupational therapists, physiotherapists, psychologists, social workers and speech and language therapists. The campaign has been very successful, with 500 offers received. The HSE is going through those offers and the plan is to get back to people by mid-February, with the first round of interviews to be held by 1 March. That is a really positive step. It is important to note that while there is currently a recruitment embargo in the HSE, there is no embargo within disability services. However, there may sometimes be some misunderstanding or issues in this regard. Last week, I met all the disability managers right across the country, in some cases along with their colleagues, the chief officers. It was identified at that meeting, where we talked about assessments of need, AONs, that some CDNT teams have not received a derogation or approval for recruitment. I am meeting the CEO of the HSE, Mr. Bernard Gloster, later today. I will ask him to sign off immediately on a derogation for the recruitment of 150 staff to fill the vacancies in CDNT teams.

Under the PDS roadmap, a suite of measures is being progressed to enhance the recruitment and retention of staff, including targeted national and international recruitment of qualified personnel, completing new administrative grades recruitment to minimise the administrative burden on staff and optimise the time available for therapeutic interventions, and an expansion of therapy assistants in the system, with the HSE supporting individuals to return to education to qualify as therapists. The latter is a huge pillar of our newly launched PDS roadmap. Over the next two years, we hope to recruit 250 assistant therapists. In Daithí's case or that of any other child, where the speech and language therapist has drawn up a programme, the child will be supported by the assistant therapist, whether that be the occupational therapist, physiotherapist or speech and language therapist. In addition, as I discussed with Senator Carrigy yesterday, I am looking at implementing centre-based approaches in the community. This would involve hubs, which are not part of the CDNTs, providing workshops for families, peer-to-peer support for young people and proper signposting of services.