Peadar Tóibín (Meath West, Aontú)
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84. To ask the Minister for Children, Equality, Disability, Integration and Youth the total number of community disability network teams in the State; and the number of which are fully staffed. [32442/25]

Hildegarde Naughton (Galway West, Fine Gael)
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I would like to thank the Deputy for his question regarding the staffing of Children’s Disability Network Teams.

There are 93 Children’s Disability Network Teams and in line with the Progressing Disability Services model these 93 teams are aligned to 96 Community Healthcare Networks across the country. CDNTs provide services and supports for children aged from birth to 18 years of age.

Currently there are no CDNT’s fully staffed, however, the HSE have advised that, as the latest data from the 9th of April 2025 shows, the CDNT workforce has grown to 2,009 Whole Time Equivalents (WTE).

This represents an overall growth since October 2023 of 414.5 WTE, reducing the corresponding vacancy rate from 29% to 18% during that period. This is the lowest vacancy rate since October 2021.

The Progressing Disability Services Roadmap, launched by the HSE in October 2023, focuses on the ongoing development of CDNT services to meet current and growing demand. It establishes a set of priority workforce actions to address current vacancies and expand recruitment across children’s disability services over the coming years.

A number of these actions have been completed with 45 new clinical psychology trainee placements created in 2023, 2024 and this will continue in October 2025.

In order to optimise recruitment into funded agencies, the HSE are facilitating direct access for funded agencies to existing HSE Health and Social Care Professional panels. This will shorten the recruitment process to candidates.

Further incentives include a CDNT sponsorship programme with bursaries for fourth year and postgrad students linked to acceptance of job offers. More therapists will be recruited into disability services to meet the needs of the vast majority of children that avail of mainstream services rather than specialist services.

Funding has been made available in 2025 for Children’s Services to build on these existing recruitment initiatives, with funding focusing on various positions across the CDNTs.

More broadly, a total of €3.2 billion has been allocated for HSE Disability Services in Budget 2025. This amounts to an 11.6% increase in funding on last year.

Continued expansion of the CDNT workforce will remain a focus for the Government and will be delivered through a series of incentives. We will continue to increase the number of places in higher education to expand the pipeline of future therapists.

Under the new Programme for Government, we will work to increase staff, train more therapists and enable targeted supports for CDNTs. Through these concentrated efforts, we will build a more robust workforce into the future to meet the growing needs of families and children.