I wish to draw the Minister's attention to the lack of a policy framework and service infrastructure for rehabilitation supports for children with a neurological condition. She will be aware that the national neurorehabilitation strategy only applies to people over 18 years of age and there is no equivalent of community neurorehabilitation teams for children. That means there is extremely limited access to therapeutic supports.

Sentiment score: 0.07

As the Minister of State will know, in Ireland, 450 children suffer a moderate or traumatic brain injury each year yet the CNDTs do not have the capacity to provide neurorehabilitation. Moreover, the children's disability network teams cannot cater for children with complex neurological disability in areas such as spasticity management, orthotics, gait analysis, feeding issues, assistive technology, seating, neurorehabilitation vision and hearing assessment. The national model of care for pediatric healthcare recommends the development of neurorehabilitation services in the community for children with neurological conditions. Will the Minister of State provide an update on that?

Sentiment score: -0.00

I welcome the announcement of additional services in the community. We need to point out that there are gaps in the current system. Children are discharged from paediatric, neurology and neurodisability services in hospital at 16 years of age. Adult disability services, including day services, accept clients from 18 years and over and therefore there is a gap there. There is also a clear lack of care co-ordination for children with acquired neurological conditions. There is a critical need for case management and key worker support for children with complex neurological and neurodevelopmental conditions. It is like everything in the community. We need more co-ordination and deeper capacity and we need services for children who have acquired brain injury most especially.

Sentiment score: 0.18