Tony McCormack (Offaly, Fianna Fail)
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18. To ask the Minister for Children, Disability and Equality the measures being taken to address delays in accessing children’s disability services in County Offaly, in particular access to speech and language therapy and other interventions through the children’s disability network teams; if additional staffing or resources are planned to reduce waiting lists and ensure timely supports; and if she will make a statement on the matter. [50108/25]

Hildegarde Naughton (Galway West, Fine Gael)
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This Government and I recognise the importance of early intervention for children with disabilities and ensuring they receive the right services at the right time.

The Programme for Government commits to ensuring children and their families, who need early intervention and therapy input, can access that support in a timely way.

The National Programme on Progressing Disability Services for Children and Young People or “PDS” is the guiding policy for children’s services. PDS is a needs-led model of service, where a child does not require a diagnosis to access services, and Children’s Disability Network Teams provide a multidisciplinary assessment of individual needs and strengths.

A key response to this issue is the recruitment and retention of Health and Social Care Professionals. Substantial effort and investment has been made in this regard.

Children’s Disability Network Teams provide supports to children with complex needs. A significant focus of the Government is filling vacant posts within the 93 Children’s Disability Network Teams, who are currently providing supports for almost 45,000 children. This includes some vacancies in County Offaly.

HSE data from April 2025 shows there has been a nationwide increase of 26% in Children’s Disability Network Teams staffing levels since October 2023.

Most significantly, the Children’s Disability Network Teams national vacancy rate has reduced from 29% in 2023 to 18% in 2025 - a reduction of 11 percentage points.

Children living in Offaly receive supports from one or two teams: Children’s Disability Network Team 10 in the Tullamore area and Children’s Disability Network Team 11 in the Edenderry/Portarlington area.

I understand from the HSE that there are 801 children on the caseload of the Tullamore team and 502 on the Portarlington/Edenderry team. There are 62 children on the waitlist in Tullamore and 38 in Portarlington/Edenderry.

As supports for children are based on multi-disciplinary team-based engagement wait times for specific therapies such as Speech and Language are not recorded. It is important to note children with the highest clinical need are prioritised.

A dedicated Disability Workforce Strategy is being developed in 2025 to meet growing service demands and address recruitment and retention challenges across specialist disability services.

The HSE are facilitating direct access for funded agencies to existing health and social care professional panels, which will shorten the recruitment process.

My department is working with the HSE to seek to introduce specific recruitment and retention incentives for therapists to work in Children’s Disability Network Teams.

There is a Children’s Disability Network Team sponsorship programme with bursaries for fourth year and postgrad students linked to acceptance of (conditional) job offers.

In addition, placements on Children’s Disability Network Teams will continue to be expanded alongside a continued expansion in the number of places in higher education, to expand the pipeline of future therapists.

There are also initiatives including engaging with the employment market and students to improve the perception of and interest in working in Children’s Disability Network Teams.

Whilst challenges exist, this Government remains committed to delivering real and tangible solutions to enhance services to better support children with disabilities in Ireland.