Eoghan Kenny (Cork North-Central, Labour)
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829. To ask the Minister for Children, Disability and Equality the current status of the Programme for Government commitment to tackle waiting lists for specialist disability services by implementation of the Action Plan for Disability Services 2024 to 2026, and resourcing and delivering on its targets; and if she will make a statement on the matter. [39519/25]

Hildegarde Naughton (Galway West, Fine Gael)
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The Action Plan for Disability Services 2024-2026 represents the first phase of implementing the recommendations of the Disability Capacity Review to 2032. It sets out a range of actions designed to provide better access to disability services. It intends to maximise the impact of service delivery through strategic change and to enable better planning and management through improved information and systems.

The planned improvements require additional investment which would see current expenditure grow by 25% over the 2023 levels indicated in the three year Plan. Furthermore, the planned expansion of residential services will require significant capital investment in order to provide the necessary housing. It is important to note that, since the publication of the Plan, the cost of service provision has risen and the scale of the uplift required to meet targets has increased in tandem.

Funding for the Action Plan is allocated on a year-to-year basis through the annual Estimates process. In 2024, the Action Plan was supported by €72 million in New Development funding to provide extra residential services, day service places, new personal assistance hours, further de-congregation, and new therapy assistant posts for children's disability services.

In 2025, €42 million in New Development funding was provided for New Developments. This funding will deliver:

• 40 new therapy staff and 20 new therapy assistants for Children’s Disability Services
• Between 1,250- and 1,400-Day Service Places for school leavers
• Circa 70 new priority one residential placements
• 21 moves from congregated settings
• In the region of 4,060 additional overnight respite sessions and 8,000 day-respite sessions
• 95,000 additional PA hours
• 40,000 hours additional Home Support hours

Eoghan Kenny (Cork North-Central, Labour)
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830. To ask the Minister for Children, Disability and Equality for an update on the Programme for Government commitment to increase staffing, train more therapists and prioritise children's disability teams to deliver supports and services as of July 2025; and if she will make a statement on the matter. [39520/25]

Hildegarde Naughton (Galway West, Fine Gael)
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Children’s Disability Network Teams (CDNTs) provide services and supports for children aged from birth to 18 years of age. In line with the Progressing Disability Services (PDS) model there are 93 CDNTs across the country, aligned to 96 Community Healthcare Networks.

Currently there are no CDNTs 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 Programme for Government commits to doubling the number of college places for speech and language therapists, physiotherapists, occupational therapists, dieticians, psychologists and social workers and developing new pathways into these professions. Increasing the supply of therapy graduates and training more health and social care workers year on year will be key to meeting the needs of the disability sector and we are engaging with the relevant departments to support this work in 2025.

Workforce issues are also being tackled through the implementation of the PDS Roadmap, which establishes a set of priority workforce actions to address current vacancies and expand recruitment across children’s disability services throughout 2023-2026. Launched by the HSE in October 2023, the Roadmap 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 also been made available this year for Children’s Services to build on existing recruitment initiatives, with funding focusing on various positions across CDNTs (including 20 Senior Therapist posts, 20 Staff Grade posts, 20 Health and Social Care Assistant posts and 15 Clinical Trainee posts).

As Minister, alongside Government, I remain committed to delivering real and tangible solutions to enhance services to better support children with disabilities in Ireland.

Eoghan Kenny (Cork North-Central, Labour)
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831. To ask the Minister for Children, Disability and Equality for an update on the Programme for Government commitment to examine the establishment of new clinical support apprenticeship roles within the disability sector, as of July 2025; and if she will make a statement on the matter. [39521/25]

Hildegarde Naughton (Galway West, Fine Gael)
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As this is an operational matter, I have asked the Health Service Executive (HSE) to respond directly to the Deputy as soon as possible.

Eoghan Kenny (Cork North-Central, Labour)
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832. To ask the Minister for Children, Disability and Equality for an update on the Programme for Government commitment to consider measures to attract and retain staff in the disability sector, as of July 2025; and if she will make a statement on the matter. [39522/25]

Hildegarde Naughton (Galway West, Fine Gael)
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Reflective of issues affecting the broader health and social care sector, the HSE and lead agencies are experiencing ongoing recruitment and retention challenges in disability services.

Whilst acknowledging the challenges, it is important to recognise that the disabilities workforce is growing year on year. From December 2019 to May 2025, the disabilities workforce in HSE and Section 38 providers grew by 20%. The HSE Children’s Disability Network Team (CDNT) workforce survey data for April 2025 demonstrates the progress that has been made over the past 18 months, with a nationwide increase of 26% in CDNT staffing levels since October 2023. Most significantly, the CDNT vacancy rate has reduced from 29% in 2023 to 18% in 2025 - a reduction of 11% nationally.

In order to achieve the staffing level improvements seen in 2024, and to fill current vacancies, there are intensive domestic and international recruitment efforts across the HSE, Section 38 and Section 39 organisations to recruit and onboard staff. This in turn, has a positive impact on retaining the staff already working in the sector. There are also a number of measures designed to attract and retain staff in CDNTs currently being progressed as part of the Progressing Disability Services (PDS) Roadmap.

A Student Sponsorship Programme was advertised by the HSE in April 2025 and will support Health and Social Care Professional (HSCP) graduates to take up a job in CDNTs, by providing financial sponsorship for part of their education costs, and matching them to a job in a CDNT. In mid-May 2025, a virtual career fair took place with a focus on Disabilities and a career in CDNTs. This featured HSE, Section 38 and Section 39 CDNT staff across a range of professions. This event targeted secondary schools, colleges and overseas workers. To further support the service provision, there is ongoing development of additional disciplines to expand skills mix and applicant pools, including the development of the role of Health and Social Care Assistant (Therapy Assistant) in 2024.

The HSE continues to work with overseas agencies to expand international recruitment. Within this, there is a particular focus on Irish trained overseas applicants, with a relocation package available to meet vouched expenses of Health and Social Care Professionals who have travelled overseas.

A dedicated Disability Workforce Strategy will be developed by the HSE later in 2025, to meet growing service demands and address recruitment and retention challenges across specialist disability services. Work during 2025 is focusing on analysing retention challenges, understanding why workers stay and why they leave. This will form the foundation for a retention action plan with a range of initiatives to respond to the requirements of the existing workforce.

Increasing the disability workforce is key to delivering on the step change in disability services commitment contained in the Programme for Government.

Eoghan Kenny (Cork North-Central, Labour)
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833. To ask the Minister for Children, Disability and Equality for an update on the Programme for Government commitment to work with the voluntary sector through industrial relations mechanisms and other processes to progress pay issues that affect the delivery of disability services and the long-term viability of organisations within the sector, as of July 2025; and if she will make a statement on the matter. [39523/25]

Hildegarde Naughton (Galway West, Fine Gael)
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Community and voluntary health and social care workers are the backbone of essential services, and the State depends on them to deliver critical support to people across the country every day.

The Government is fully committed to directly engaging with the voluntary sector and using industrial relations mechanisms to tackle pay issues that threaten disability services.

In March of this year, I welcomed a historic pay agreement that will benefit Health and Social Care Workers in community and voluntary organisations.

The agreement between Government Departments and unions, includes funding for a 9.25% pay increase for workers in community and voluntary health and social care organisations.

Taken with the previous October 2023 Agreement of an 8% increase for these workers, this commitment amounts to a 17.25% pay funding increase over a 3½ year period.

This increase will benefit around 40,000 workers - of which c. 27,000 are working in specialist disability services - and is equivalent to the current Public Sector Agreement.

During a meeting of the parties at the WRC on the 8th of July, the funding agencies reported that funding arrangements have commenced with a view to allocating all funds due, by the end of Quarter 3 (September 2025).

The HSE has confirmed that the first payments to qualifying organisations to meet the terms of the new agreement, will commence issuing this month, with approximately 150 organisations to receive payment by the end of July.

The HSE is continuing to engage with the remaining organisations with a view to having payments being made as soon as possible. This will be a rolling process with funding being released as the information received from individual employers is assessed and validated.

Employer representative groups committed to ensuring that payments received will be processed as soon as practically possible thereafter.