Dáil Éireann Debate, Tuesday - 15 July 2025
830. Deputy Eoghan Kenny asked the Minister for Children, Disability and Equality for an update on the Programme for Government commitment to increase staffing, train more therapists and prioritise children's disability teams to deliver supports and services as of July 2025; and if she will make a statement on the matter. [39520/25]
View answerChildren’s Disability Network Teams (CDNTs) provide services and supports for children aged from birth to 18 years of age. In line with the Progressing Disability Services (PDS) model there are 93 CDNTs across the country, aligned to 96 Community Healthcare Networks.
Currently there are no CDNTs fully staffed, however, the HSE have advised that, as the latest data from the 9th of April 2025 shows, the CDNT workforce has grown to 2,009 Whole Time Equivalents (WTE). This represents an overall growth since October 2023 of 414.5 WTE, reducing the corresponding vacancy rate from 29% to 18% during that period. This is the lowest vacancy rate since October 2021.
The Programme for Government commits to doubling the number of college places for speech and language therapists, physiotherapists, occupational therapists, dieticians, psychologists and social workers and developing new pathways into these professions. Increasing the supply of therapy graduates and training more health and social care workers year on year will be key to meeting the needs of the disability sector and we are engaging with the relevant departments to support this work in 2025.
Workforce issues are also being tackled through the implementation of the PDS Roadmap, which establishes a set of priority workforce actions to address current vacancies and expand recruitment across children’s disability services throughout 2023-2026. Launched by the HSE in October 2023, the Roadmap focuses on the ongoing development of CDNT services to meet current and growing demand. It establishes a set of priority workforce actions to address current vacancies and expand recruitment across children’s disability services over the coming years.
A number of these actions have been completed with 45 new clinical psychology trainee placements created in 2023, 2024 and this will continue in October 2025. In order to optimise recruitment into funded agencies, the HSE are facilitating direct access for funded agencies to existing HSE Health and Social Care Professional panels. This will shorten the recruitment process to candidates.
Further incentives include a CDNT sponsorship programme with bursaries for fourth year and postgrad students linked to acceptance of job offers. More therapists will be recruited into disability services to meet the needs of the vast majority of children that avail of mainstream services rather than specialist services.
Funding has also been made available this year for Children’s Services to build on existing recruitment initiatives, with funding focusing on various positions across CDNTs (including 20 Senior Therapist posts, 20 Staff Grade posts, 20 Health and Social Care Assistant posts and 15 Clinical Trainee posts).
As Minister, alongside Government, I remain committed to delivering real and tangible solutions to enhance services to better support children with disabilities in Ireland.
