Peadar Tóibín (Meath West, Aontú)
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28. To ask the Minister for Education and Skills the number of children within the education system on a waiting list for vital therapies. [7725/25]

Helen McEntee (Meath East, Fine Gael)
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The provision of clinical therapy supports to children is the responsibility of the HSE. Matters in relation to the provision of therapy services and the deployment of HSE staff should be directed to the HSE or to the Department of Children, Disability, and Equality.

My department is working with the Department of Health, DCEDIY and the HSE to develop and strengthen more coherent structures to enable children and young people to access therapeutic supports across both health and education. As a result of this engagement, Phase 1 of the enhanced in-school therapy supports pilot commenced in September 2024, in six schools in the Cork and Dublin. An additional ten schools were announced as part of the pilot on 8th November 2024. All therapy staff will be recruited through the HSE and HSE funded services.

This integrated pilot programme will see the delivery of enhanced in-school therapy supports provided by the HSE’s Children’s Disability Network Teams (CDNT) and will be supported by the National Council for Special Education (NCSE).

The focus of this pilot is to provide the effective delivery of enhanced in-school therapy supports to children in selected special schools. This pilot will supplement existing services provided through CDNTs. A detailed evaluation of the pilot programme will inform the future development of policy in both education and health provision.

The Educational Therapy Support Service (ETSS) was established in June 2024. The expansion of therapy services within the NCSE is expected to build on the achievements and impacts of this element of the School Inclusion Model (SIM) pilot programme, which provided support to 75 schools as part of the SIM pilot. The ETSS service is designed to build the capacity of teachers (and other school personnel as relevant) to provide as effectively as possible for the needs of all students. The ETSS does not have a waiting list for individual children and therapies.