The Government recognises that waiting lists for assessments of need are far too long and have a significant impact on the needs of children and their families. It should be noted that children who require services from a children's disability network team, CDNT, do not require a diagnosis or a statutory assessment of need, AON. However, it is a fact that demand for AONs has increased significantly in recent years, which is a reflection of both the increase in population and of families exploring all options for accessing services for their children. The HSE advises that in 2024 it received 10,690 AON applications, which is more than double the 4,700 applications received in 2020. The most recent data from the HSE shows that 14,221 AONs were overdue for completion at the end of December 2024. Work is ongoing by the HSE to increase the capacity of CDNTs to deliver therapy interventions to children and produce assessments of need. It is notable that the HSE reports a 30% increase in the number of AONs completed in 2024 compared with 2023. This has been achieved by a number of measures, including the waiting list initiative agreed by the Government last May. It targets those families waiting the longest for assessments of needs, with funding provided for the procurement of assessments from approved private providers. The HSE advises that more than 2,400 assessments of needs were commissioned from private providers over seven months in 2024. This initiative will continue in 2025 with €10 million in funding allocated to deliver some 2,850 assessments of needs and allow for additional capacity in the assessment teams in the form of assessment and liaison officers. In 2023, on foot of a direct request from the Minister of State with responsibility for disability, the HSE also developed AON administrative hubs in community healthcare areas. I will leave it there for the moment.

Sentiment score: 0.18

The Deputy is entirely correct about the stress, frustration, worry and anger of parents out there, and I absolutely acknowledge this point. They want access to therapies for their children. In many cases, they also want a diagnosis. There is a combination of reasons why people look for assessments of need. I absolutely accept that. The administrative hubs are in CHOs 1, 4, 5, 7 and 8. Established assessment hubs are also in CHOs 3, 6 and 9. The AON administration hubs will aim to provide a single point for receipt of AON applications and allocation to assessment officers to ensure a spread of demand of assessment officers across all available resources. The roll-out of the regional assessment hubs sees the provision of personnel dedicated to the delivery of assessments of needs while preserving the time of other clinical staff for therapy interventions for children and their families. I absolutely accept, therefore, that this matter is about therapies as well and this is another body of work we are doing in the Department with the HSE to ensure we are recruiting and retaining therapists.

Sentiment score: 0.12

I will certainly follow up with the HSE on that issue. What we want to do here is ensure that children and others with disabilities, including adults, are getting the therapies and services they need and require. That is my focus, that of the Minister, Deputy Foley, and of the Government. I refer to ensuring that we have the services and therapies required, be they occupational therapists, speech and language therapists, physiotherapists or whatever therapies it might be, to ensure we are addressing the needs of our young people and people with disabilities right across the country. My door is open and I welcome the Deputy's feedback. I want to try to respond and we all need to work on this area together. The Deputy has my commitment on that.

Sentiment score: 0.32

I thank the Deputy for his question. The Government is committed to providing early intervention services to children with disabilities and their families as referenced in the programme for Government. A total of €3.2 billion has been allocated for disability services in budget 2025. This is an 11.6% increase on 2024 and represents an overall increase since 2020 of €1.2 billion. This increase will support the roll-out of the roadmap for service improvement for disabilities, including services for children and young people, through the provision of key roles and trainee placements for children's disability network teams. As we know, the demand for CDNT services is growing every year and the progressing disabilities services, PDS, roadmap 2023-2026, which was launched by the HSE in October 2023, focuses on the ongoing development of CDNT services to meet current and growing demand. The PDS model is a needs-led model of service, where a child does not require a diagnosis to access services. CDNTs provide a multidisciplinary assessment of individuals' needs and strengths. Currently, 42,000 children are receiving services through the CDNTs. We know the delivery of services to children is inherently linked to the staffing levels in the CDNTs and their capacity to deliver these services. The Government has provided funding for additional posts to enhance the capacity of CDNTs in recent years. The HSE has advised there was a net addition of 272 staff in CDNTs in 2024, which is a 17% increase compared with 2023. Funding has been made available in 2025 for children's services to build on these existing recruitment initiatives, with funding focusing on various positions across the CDNTs, including 20 senior therapist posts, 20 staff grade posts, 20 health and social care assistant posts and 15 clinical trainee posts. Under the new programme for Government, we will work to increase staff, train more therapists and enable targeted supports for CDNTs. Through these concerted efforts, we will be able to have a more robust workforce in the future to meet the growing demand from families and children.

Sentiment score: 0.30

In regard to early intervention, it is worth noting that in education, the access and inclusion model, AIM, is in place to support children with additional needs to access and meaningfully participate in early learning and childcare by providing universal supports to preschool settings generally and targeted supports based on the needs of the individual without requiring a diagnosis. The Deputy asked what we are doing regarding recruitment, both domestically and in the international field as well. We are trying to recruit. As he is aware, recruitment and retention are a challenge across all sectors, but in particular this sector, and a significant focus of the Government is filling the vacant posts within the 93 CDNTs. To optimise the recruitment into funded agencies, the HSE is facilitating direct access for funded agencies to existing HSE health and social care professional panels, which will shorten the recruitment process. In addition, our Department is working with the HSE to seek to introduce specific recruitment and retention incentives for therapists to work in CDNTs, along with the CDNT sponsorship programme, which has bursaries for fourth year and postgraduate students linked to acceptance of job offers. We are also expanding places in higher education facilities. We have an extra 150 therapists now going through the third level system.

Sentiment score: 0.35

I thank Deputy Farrelly for his support in this regard. My door is open as well if there are any good ideas. We do not have the monopoly on solutions and my door is fully open in that regard. This is about ongoing recruitment. We have also been looking at what else we can do. There may be people working in other disciplines within the health sector who want to become therapists and could be upskilled. We must look at everything we can do. It is also about retention and pay. I get all of that. That is a key part of this as well. We must make sure there is a pipeline for the future given that disability is growing, not just here in Ireland but internationally, and we must also make sure we plan for the future so that we have the workforce coming in as well.

Sentiment score: 0.22