Eoghan Kenny (Cork North-Central, Labour)
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1530. To ask the Minister for Children, Disability and Equality her Department’s strategy to reduce waiting lists for children’s disability services nationally; and if she will make a statement on the matter. [58994/25]

Norma Foley (Kerry, Fianna Fail)
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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.

Under the Programme for Government, the Government is committed to ensuring children and their families who need early intervention and therapy input can access that support in a timely way. Nevertheless, I acknowledge that families are facing unacceptable delays in accessing therapies for their children and that multiple actions are required to improve access to therapies.

Over the past two years, the Roadmap for Service Improvement for Disability Services for Children and Young People has been the key vehicle for enhancing children’s disability services. It contains significant measures to integrate and improve access to services, expand the workforce and advance better communication and engagement with families.

Through this Roadmap, a series of actions have been progressed to improve access to Children’s Disability Network Teams (CDNTs) who are providing supports and services to almost 45,000 children with complex needs. Waiting lists for CDNT services have reduced by 18% in the first 8 months of this year, from 12,920 to 10,579 children. This is a welcome improvement and one that must continue.

A key response to the issue of waiting lists has been the recruitment and retention of Health and Social Care Professionals. While recruitment and retention of staff is a challenge across the disability sector overall, filling vacancies within the 93 CDNTs is a priority for this Government. Substantial effort and investment has been made in this regard. Funding was made available this year for the recruitment of 75 positions across the CDNTs, and Budget 2026 includes provision for the funding of 150 posts next year.

The positive impact of this focus on recruitment is evident in HSE data from April 2025 which shows there has been a nationwide increase of 26% in CDNT staffing levels since October 2023. Most significantly, the CDNT national vacancy rate has reduced from 29% in 2023 to 18% in 2025 - a reduction of 11 percentage points.

This Department is working with the HSE to introduce specific recruitment and retention incentives for therapists to work in CDNTs. These include a CDNT sponsorship programme with bursaries for fourth year and postgrad students linked to acceptance of (conditional) job offers, increased placements on CDNTs, and facilitation of direct access for funded agencies to existing professional panels which will shorten the recruitment process.

We also need to develop a pipeline of future therapists through the third level education system to meet the continuing need for health and social care professionals.

In June, the Government approved an expansion in training places from September 2025 in disciplines critical to disability, health and education services. Additionally alternative pathways into health and social care professions are being developed to widen access to critical skills areas. These include apprenticeships, tertiary programmes, graduate conversion and mature entry.

I can assure you that this Government will continually engage with the HSE, service providers and families to ensure that children with disabilities receive the therapies they need in a timely manner.