Maeve O'Connell (Dublin Rathdown, Fine Gael)
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479. To ask the Minister for Children, Equality, Disability, Integration and Youth to report on her Department’s progress in developing a new national policy for personal assistance services. [31666/25]

Hildegarde Naughton (Galway West, Fine Gael)
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Personal assistance is a service primarily for adults with physical disabilities that enables them to live their lives as independently as possible and to take decision making control. Typically, the person with the disability either directly employs their personal assistant or is involved in the process of selecting a personal assistant to work with them. The person with the disability determines the support they need and the activities they need support with.

In collaboration with my Department, service providers and disabled people, a Health Service Executive-led Review Group is progressing a crucial programme of work with the central aim of developing of a national policy and service description for personal assistance services which specifies eligibility and allocation protocols. To date, the Group have:

• Agreed a working definition for personal assistance services.
• Examined the legal and regulatory framework governing personal assistance services in Ireland.
• Conducted a survey of the current personal assistance services in each CHO.
• Consulted with providers of personal assistance services as well as disabled people in receipt of personal assistance services to inform future policy development.
• Commissioned an evidence review to identify and evaluate best practices in personal assistance services from international contexts including Sweden, Norway, Canada and Australia. The review focuses on approaches that promote independence, choice and dignity for disabled people in line with the United Nations Convention on the Rights of Persons with Disabilities.

Maeve O'Connell (Dublin Rathdown, Fine Gael)
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480. To ask the Minister for Children, Equality, Disability, Integration and Youth to report on her Department’s work in the development of a personalised budget demonstrator pilot. [31667/25]

Hildegarde Naughton (Galway West, Fine Gael)
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A personalised budget is an amount of funding allocated to an eligible person with a disability to enable them to make their own arrangements to meet specified support needs.

On foot of a commitment in the Programme for Partnership Government (2016) to introduce personalised budgets for persons with disabilities in Ireland, bringing about the establishment of the Personalised Budgets Taskforce on 20 September 2016.

Published in 2018, the report of the Taskforce on Personalised Budgets recommended that the Department of Health and the Health Service Executive should establish demonstration projects to test the delivery of personalised budgets in an Irish context with a view to identifying the best approach for the wider roll-out of the model following the initial demonstration phase.

In 2019, the Department of Health formed an Oversight Group for the demonstration project which included representatives from the Health Service Executive and the National Disability Authority. Following the Group’s completion of an implementation plan, the first phase of the demonstrator pilot was launched in August 2019 with expressions of interest for participation sought from disabled adults in receipt of Health Service Executive funded specialist disability services.

In 2023, responsibility for specialist disability services transferred from the Department of Health to the Department of Children, Equality, Disability, Integration and Youth (now the Department of Children, Disability and Equality), and with it, responsibility for the Personalised Budget Demonstrator Pilot.

As of 12 February 2025, there are 130 active participants in the Pilot, with 50 people participating in the final Stage 4, the “Living Life Phase”.

The evaluation of the Pilot has commenced, led by the National Disability Authority, and is expected to be completed by the end of the year. The evaluation will inform next steps in developing an effective model of personalised budgets in Ireland.

Maeve O'Connell (Dublin Rathdown, Fine Gael)
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481. To ask the Minister for Children, Equality, Disability, Integration and Youth the targeted incentives that will be employed to improve recruitment and retention for children’s disability network teams. [31669/25]

Hildegarde Naughton (Galway West, Fine Gael)
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The Programme for Government – “Securing Ireland’s Future” sets out a clear commitment to increase staffing, train more therapists and prioritise Children’s Disability Network Teams (CDNTs) to deliver supports and services.

I fully acknowledge that recruitment and retention of staff is a challenge across the disability sector overall, due to the international shortage of Health and Social Care Professionals (HSCPs). However, a significant priority for this Government is filling vacancies within the 93 Children’s Disability Network Teams (CDNTs), who are providing supports and services for over 43,000 children with complex needs. The Health Service Executive (HSE) has advised that there was a significant net addition of 272 staff in CDNTs nationally in the year to October 2024, a 17% increase across all teams compared to 2023.

My Department is working with the HSE to introduce specific recruitment and retention incentives for therapists to work in CDNTs. One example is the CDNT Sponsorship Initiative, which is aimed at final year undergraduate and postgraduate Speech and Language Therapy, Occupational Therapy, Physiotherapy and Social Work students in the Republic of Ireland and Northern Ireland relevant courses, due to graduate in 2025. Pending graduation, these HSCPs will be eligible to register with CORU in 2025.

To continue growth and optimise recruitment into funded agencies, the HSE is facilitating direct access for funded agencies to existing HSE HSCP panels, which will shorten the recruitment process and provide direct access to candidates. Additionally, €10 million has been made available in 2025 for Children’s Services, to enhance the capacity of CDNTs and shorten the waiting times. Funding will be used to build on existing recruitment initiatives, with a focus on various additional posts across the CDNTs (including 20 Senior Therapist posts, 20 Staff Grade posts, 20 Health and Social Care Assistant posts and 15 Clinical Trainee posts). The overall HSE Disability Budget for 2025 has seen a growth to €3.2 billion, which equates to an 11.6% increase from the previous year.

The HSE advise that a national standard has been set of 1 student placement per 2 full time staff per discipline in post on the CDNT. Student placements provided in the academic year 2023/2024 increased 30.5% over the previous year, underpinned by concerted efforts of CDNT staff and leadership of their Children’s Disability Network Team Managers (CDNMs). Student placements are beneficial for student learning and for individual staff and team development. It is hoped that placements will lead to increased numbers of HSCPs applying to work in CDNTs post-graduation.

Placements on CDNTs will continue to be expanded, alongside a continued expansion in the number of places in higher education, to develop the pipeline of future therapists. Other ongoing recruitment and retention measures include a National CDNT Training Programme 2024/2025, in train for full delivery by December 2025 and an expediated CORU registration process.