Dáil Éireann Debate, Thursday - 18 December 2025
61. Deputy Paul Lawless asked the Minister for Children, Disability and Equality the number of children currently awaiting therapy services under children's disability network teams, CDNTs; the average waiting time for speech and language therapy, occupational therapy and physiotherapy, by county; and the number of posts vacant within CDNTs nationally and regionally. [72984/25]
View answerThis Government and I recognise the importance of early intervention for children with disabilities and ensuring they receive the right services at the right time.
I am pleased to say that progress has been made in this regard in recent times. Over the past two years, the Roadmap for Service Improvement 2024 – 2026, Disability Services for Children and Young People has been the key vehicle for enhancing children’s disability services. Through this Roadmap, a series of actions have been progressed to improve access to Children’s Disability Network Teams (CDNTs).
There are 93 CDNTs aligned to 96 Community Healthcare Networks (CHNs) across the country, providing services and supports for children aged from birth to 18 years of age. The model of service for all CDNTs is family-centred and based on the needs of the child. This includes universal, targeted and specialised supports and interventions, as appropriate to the individual child and family. It is based on the objectives of empowering and supporting parents and others who are with the child on a daily basis to facilitate the child’s developmental needs.
This Government is also committed to ensuring children and their families who need early intervention and therapy input can access that support in a timely way.
Waiting List for Children’s Disability Network Teams (CDNTs)
Data from the HSE for September shows that the CDNTs are providing supports and services to almost 45,000 children with complex needs across the country.
Since the Roadmap for Service Improvement was approved by Government in July 2023, the national CDNT waiting List has reduced from 16,522 children awaiting an initial contact with a CDNT to 10,099 at the end of September 2025, with a year-end projection of 9,000. The first nine months of this year has seen a 22% reduction in the waiting list from 12,920 to 10,099 children.
It should be noted that, during September 2025, 1,283 children (and/or their parents) who are on the CDNT waiting list participated in one or more individual and/or group intervention appointments.
In line with best practice guidelines, CDNTs use an interdisciplinary service model for assessment and intervention and therefore, do not collect activity data by individual discipline (such as SLT, OT and Physiotherapy).
CDNT Workforce
Children’s Disability Network Team staffing is reported on through an annual survey to capture the full workforce across the HSE, Section 38 and Section 39 funded teams. This includes staffing levels across various disciplines and grades, providing a snapshot of the workforce across the 93 CDNTs.
The latest published CDNT workforce data is from the April 2025 survey. It shows that there were 2,009 filled CDNT posts, an increase of 8% in the 6 months from the previous workforce survey in October 2024. In the 18 months between October 2023 and April 2025, the workforce grew by 26% or 414.5 WTE posts.
The April 2025 workforce data also show a reduction of 11 percentage points in the number of unfilled CDNT posts, with 445.4 unfilled WTE posts. Vacancy rates vary across the 93 CDNTS, with some having lower rates than the national rate of 18%.
There are substantial ongoing workforce initiatives and efforts to fill funded vacancies, and work continues at pace to increase staffing rates across CDNTs. The HSE and CDNT Lead Agencies work actively and collaboratively to improve and optimise recruitment into CDNTs and wider disabilities, which in turn has a positive impact on retaining the staff currently working in CDNTs.
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.
