The Government recognises 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, we are committed to ensuring children and their families who need early intervention and therapy input can access it in a timely way. The key vehicle for change and improvement is the roadmap for service improvement for disability services for children and young people. The implementation of this roadmap is well under way and will continue until 2026. The roadmap contains an important set of actions that, collectively, will enhance children’s disability services in Ireland. They include significant measures to integrate and improve access to services, expand the workforce and advance better communication and engagement with families. A key part of this work has been the improvement of access to services through the CDNTs. They are providing supports and services to more than 43,000 children. I fully acknowledge that there is still a lot more to do. Recruitment and retention of health and social care professionals is the most significant challenge and work is ongoing to increase staffing levels. The HSE has advised that the most recent CDNT workforce survey available was conducted in April. This survey demonstrates an overall national increase of an additional 8% in staffing in CDNTs, compared with the workforce at the review in October 2024. This brings the total number of whole-time equivalents to 2,009. The Department is working with the HSE to introduce specific recruitment and retention incentives for therapists to work in CDNTs, including a sponsorship initiative and facilitating direct access for funded agencies to existing professional panels.
Sentiment score: 0.39
We are doing a number of things in recruitment and retention. We have bursaries in place. We are opening up HSE panels. We have HSE advertising streams. We also have a number of fairs, including one in May where one of the top priorities was to recruit people and to introduce people to social care therapists, occupational therapists and speech and language therapists. We have 150 extra therapists going through our third level institutions and there will be more again this year. We are looking at therapy assistants. We have therapists going into our special schools. We also have incentives for therapists to work in our CDNTs. We have more than €10 million in funding. Additional funding has been made available by the Government for children's services. This funding focuses on recruiting various positions in CDNTs, including 20 senior therapists, 20 staff grade posts, 20 health and social care assistant posts and 15 clinical training posts. Measures are also being taken to assist with sustainably addressing the backlog in the assessment of needs.
Sentiment score: 0.15
I assure Deputy Lawless that absolutely everything is being done. What is happening now is what I have just listed out. We also have domestic and international recruitment drives happening all the time, as we speak. We also have an expedited CORU registration process from this year. This is specifically for people who may have trained abroad and want to come here to work. We want to expedite this process. It has already been expedited. We are looking at absolutely everything. If there are particular cases, and Deputy Lawless is aware of particular people who are having issues with coming home or registering, my door is open. I absolutely assure him from a Government point of view there is a Cabinet committee that meets very regularly on recruitment drives and higher education. In-school therapists will be in place in September. The programme has been up and running since the Minister and I were in the Department of education. We want to roll this out. It is all about making sure that children and adults have access to therapists. We know there is big demand. We are lucky to have full employment in the country. With that comes these issues. Absolutely everything is being thrown at this. If Deputy Lawless has suggestions on what we can do, my door is open.
Sentiment score: 0.08
Deputy Lawless can come back to me afterwards.
Sentiment score: 0.00
I thank the Deputy. On 26 April 2023, the Assisted Decision-Making (Capacity) Act 2015, along with most of the Assisted Decision-Making (Capacity) (Amendment) Act 2022, were commenced, replacing the wards of court system. That Act places individuals at the centre of decisions that affect them and provides for the necessary supports to enable persons with capacity difficulties to retain control over their own affairs and the decisions that affect them. One of the principles of the Act is that a person is presumed to have capacity to make a decision unless it is shown otherwise. A third party, such as a parent or other family member, does not have an automatic entitlement to be involved. Where a person’s capacity to make a particular decision is in question, or may shortly be in question, their capacity is assessed specifically regarding that decision. This is known as a functional capacity assessment, whereby capacity is assessed on an issue- and time-specific basis. A person may lack capacity to make one decision but have capacity to make another decision. All practicable steps must be taken to help the relevant person whose capacity is being called into question to make their own decisions, and the relevant person’s capacity to make a specific decision must only be assessed if they are still unable to make the decision after such supports have been provided. Service providers must work to enable a person to make their decision through the use of supports appropriate to their capacity to make that decision. Where persons lack decision-making capacity and require decision-making supports to meet their ongoing needs, they can seek to put in place a decision support arrangement under the Assisted Decision-Making (Capacity) Act 2015. The HSE has prepared a suite of person-centred plan resources for people with a disability, their families and service providers across adult disability services. I am not sure if that is what the Deputy specifically referred to, but that is the recent Act.
Sentiment score: 0.17
As the Deputy was speaking, I was reminded of people in a similar situation who have come into my constituency office. Often they are parents who have a grown-up adult child. Their question is what will happen to their child when the parents pass away. We cannot always answer those questions, but they will be looked after. It is all about this forward planning and having the data. As the Deputy knows, we are working on a national disability strategy, which will be published over the coming weeks. These are the questions I want us to be able to answer during the term of this Government and to set out a vision regarding these services, to make sure that families and people with disabilities know where they are going and have that person-centred plan in place. On 29 May 2024, the HSE launched a suite of person-centred plan resources for people with disabilities, their families and service providers. That was a good learning module. It is something we want to do, but we need the data to forward plan and to know. We need a mapping exercise across the country regarding the facilities within the Deputy's county and my county in order that people know where they can go for day or residential care. We have to look toward independent living.
Sentiment score: 0.14
Both Deputies have raised important points. For example, when somebody is leaving the school setting, there needs to be a transition. We are doing work in that regard. The person-centred plan has been developed with each person, his or her family and his or her support person, looking at ensuring that this person with a disability is making informed choices about what he or she wants to do, be it a job, training or a day service. A few weeks ago, the Ministers, Deputies Foley and Calleary, and I launched the wage subsidy scheme, which incentivises employers to employ people with disabilities. Sometimes that is the obstacle. At other times, the obstacle is the transport for the person to get to the job and the job is not the issue. That is why this national disability strategy that we are working on will include areas such as this regarding transitions from school into the workplace and day centres and how we can support people to be able to live independently in their own homes, to get a job and to make their own personal choices. I take on board the issues the Deputies raised regarding timely assessments. I will be following up on that.
Sentiment score: 0.06
Ireland ratified the UNCRPD in 2018. Since ratification, Ireland's approach has been to ensure cumulative advancements over time. The programme for Government commits to delivering a new national disability strategy that will provide an overarching framework for advancing the State’s obligations under the UNCRPD. In advance of the strategy, work continues unabated across government to advance implementation, with achievements including: increases in funding for disability services, including €3.2 billion in budget 2025 for HSE disability services; the ratification of the optional protocol to the UNCRPD; the publication of the Action Plan for Disability Services 2024-2026; publication of the autism innovation strategy; the commencement in 2023 of the Assisted Decision Making (Capacity) Act 2015, as amended, which establishes a modern legal framework to support decision-making by adults who may have difficulty making decisions without help; the introduction of key programmes like the work and access scheme to support disabled people in accessing employment; and the publication of the National Housing Strategy for Disabled People 2022-2027. The publication of the next national disability strategy will be the next milestone in Ireland's UNCRPD journey. That provides a whole-of-government framework for the advancement of rights. It will be ambitious. It will take action across a range of thematic pillars taken collectively that will capture the issues that most affect disabled people in their day-to-day lives, including education, employment, independent living, health and transport. It is codesigned with disabled people and their representative organisations. The strategy will provide a framework for sustaining and building on this progress and ensuring that disabled people are empowered to live full lives of their own choosing
Sentiment score: 0.24
I will answer the Deputy's last question first. Housing and disability are absolute priority for the Government. We all know knocking on the doors in the general election campaign the importance of disability right across the sector. Last week, I attended the United Nations disability conference in New York. The Irish delegation travelled with leading disability groups from Ireland who have directly fed into this national disability strategy. Once this strategy is published - and the timeline for that will be before the summer recess - this will be a living document. That is not the end of it. We will constantly be adapting and making sure that we are getting our policy right by listening to those with the lived experience. It is not just about publishing a strategy, as the Deputy said; it is about implementing it. There needs to be an action plan. A cross-government implementation team will be put in place. This will not just included myself and the Minister in the Department of disability. Every single Department and every Cabinet Minister will play their role, while making sure that we achieve that step change to ensure people with disabilities live independent lives.
Sentiment score: 0.14
There has been, and there will continue to be, robust consultation with all the key stakeholders, disability groups and DPOs. To give the Deputy an example of our track record on that, for this disability strategy we had extensive public consultation, which concluded last year. That included 34 focus groups and almost 500 responses to a national questionnaire. We had town hall events in Dublin, Cork, Galway and online feeding into this disability strategy. The consultation has continued on an alternative basis with key stakeholder groups, including DPOs and disability service providers, as well as across government. This engagement has supported the development of an ambitious strategy that will advance the implementation of the UNCRPD and ensure that disabled people are supported to live full lives of their own choosing. It is all about that lived experience. If we are going to get this right, it is about listening to them. I will come back to the Deputy on the timelines that he asked about.
Sentiment score: 0.17
I thank the Deputy for raising this important issue. The overarching aim of the neuro-rehabilitation strategy is the development of neuro-rehabilitation services to improve patient outcomes by providing safe, high-quality, person-centred neuro-rehabilitation at the lowest appropriate level of complexity. It straddles acute hospitals and primary care as well as specialist community-based disability services. The past few years have seen consistent funding being provided to advance the roll-out of the neuro-rehabilitation strategy. The Department of Children, Disability and Equality as well as the Department of Health, aim to continue this important work to ensure there is a fully integrated service available to those people who need it. As part of the strategy, the HSE is in the process of expanding the number of community neuro-rehabilitation teams across the country. The current position is that four new teams have been recruited and will be operational this year. A further two partial teams are in place that predate the strategy. There is currently no community neuro-rehabilitation team, CNRT, operational in HSE Carlow, Kilkenny, Tipperary South, Waterford-Wexford, HSE Midlands or HSE Dublin and North East. Moving forward with the neuro-rehabilitation strategy, the aim is to enhance the existing CNRTs, fund those areas that do not have a CNRT and create a large population-based CNRT within each regional health area following the implementation of the new regional health areas under Sláintecare. Additional funding will be a matter for the annual budgetary process. As outlined in the 2025 national service plan, the HSE is committed to developing community neuro-rehabilitation teams in line with the implementation framework and enhancing capacity for its implementation nationally. A care pathway has to be integrated to make sure people are getting these services as close to home as possible. That is the basis of the Deputy's question.
Sentiment score: 0.24
This is a new structure being rolled out. It has taken the team a little time to set up the structures. The funding was in place and they are now rolling out those teams across the country. We will complete the national roll-out of the HSE community neuro-rehabilitation teams. We will develop more regional inpatient rehabilitation beds as well, implement community-based, multidisciplinary rehabilitation services in every regional health area, and increase the number of neurology nurse specialists and consultant neurologists. I look forward to working with the Deputy and keeping him up to date on the roll-out.
Sentiment score: 0.10
I thank both Deputies. I am looking forward to my visit to An Síol tomorrow morning and to seeing the Deputy there. I know they are doing fantastic work there on the ground. I am visiting these services throughout the country. When I am in these services, I meet people who have acquired brain injuries. I see the results of road traffic accidents and the importance of these facilities on the ground within communities. It is great to be in this position. I am honoured to be and to be able to fund such services that do fantastic work. I will take on board comments from Deputies.
Sentiment score: 0.26