Charlie McConalogue (Donegal, Fianna Fail) | Oireachtas source

I thank Senator Byrne. Congratulations to him on his election and indeed to Senator Brady beside him. It is a great honour to be elected to the Seanad.Both Senators, and Senator Higgins, know better than anyone it is a very difficult election so congratulations to all and best wishes for the term ahead.

I thank Senator Byrne for raising this matter. It is important to state the Government and Minister of State for disabilities, Deputy Naughton, are fully committed to providing the necessary services to enable any child with a disability to reach his or her full potential. Both the Government and the HSE are committed to further progressing and enhancing children's disability services in the State. As the Senator will be aware, one senior speech and language therapist, SLT, post and two staff grade SLT posts have been allocated to the children’s disability network team, CDNT, area in New Ross. Regrettably, the senior SLT post and one staff grade SLT post are currently vacant, while the staff member in the filled staff grade SLT post is currently on statutory leave.

There are ongoing efforts by the CDNT to recruit into these posts with the senior SLT post recently being accepted and currently in the HR pre-clearance process. Unfortunately, however, no expressions of interest have yet been received for either of the vacant staff grade SLT posts. As an interim measure the CDNT is currently providing cross-cover SLT services for the purpose of providing urgent feeding, eating, drinking and swallowing difficulties support. Universal supports are also available to children in the CDNT such as a workshop on supporting your child's feeding, and sensory pathway and understanding autism supports.

I acknowledge the difficulties faced by children and their families seeking to access the services of CDNTs, in New Ross and across the country. The continued development and support of our 93 CDNTs as they seek to ensure equitable access to services for all children with complex needs is a priority for the Government. The Government is committed to addressing the underlying recruitment and retention issues to fully staff each team to maximum capacity. These challenges are reflective of the issues affecting the wider health and social care sector.

The HSE national recruitment service continues to explore a range of options to enhance the recruitment and retention of staff to CDNTs. To optimise recruitment into funded agencies, the HSE is facilitating direct access for funded agencies to existing HSE health and social care professionals, HSCP, panels which will shorten the recruitment process and will provide direct access to competent and eligible candidates. Officials will work with the HSE to seek to introduce specific recruitment and retention incentives for therapists to work in CDNTs, along with a CDNT sponsorship programme with bursaries for fourth year and postgraduate students linked to acceptance of conditional job offers. In addition, placements on CDNTs will continue to be expanded alongside a continued expansion in the number of places in higher education to increase the pipeline of future therapists. Measures will also be provided to assist with sustainably addressing the assessment of need backlog while freeing up resources available to provide therapeutic supports to children with complex needs. In addition, some bespoke initiatives designed to provide specialist supports for children with complex needs will be supported.

While recruitment and retention of staff to CDNTs remains a considerable challenge, I affirm Government’s commitment as well as that of the HSE to exploring all avenues to improve access to CDNTs for children and their families in New Ross and across the country.