I have been contacted by a mother in Roscommon whose child requires occupational therapy and speech and language therapy but is not receiving it. In her email she said it is one year since the provision of services transferred from the Brothers of Charity to the HSE. During this year the situation has been intolerable for her family, with having to beg at ministerial level for services.

Her child is one of thousands, and in our own community healthcare organisation, CHO 2, 1,600 children are waiting for that initial contact from the disability network teams. Vacancies are obviously rife right across those network teams. If the network teams cannot be staffed, and many of them are yet to be staffed, an alternative needs be found to ensure these children get the services they need, when they need them, and not years later. That is not to mention the thousands of children in Roscommon, Galway and throughout the State who are waiting for various services under primary care. A way has to be found if these network teams cannot be staffed.

We are very aware there are far too many children who are still waiting. Considerable progress was made in reducing the numbers waiting from more than 70,000 down to the low 50,000s. Unfortunately, the HSE is complying with a court ruling around assessment of need, which means that progress has stopped for now, and we are aware that a great amount of resources, unfortunately, had been pulled into the assessment of need area. These resources, from a policy perspective, should be deployed in treating the children themselves.

Nonetheless, the Deputy has hit the nail on the head in that the single biggest challenge and opportunity is hiring people into the progressing disability services, PDS, teams on the ground. We are finalising a new strategy with the HSE, and from my perspective, the direction I have given to the Department and to the HSE is that the single greatest priority is to find ways to attract in these therapists and to get these children the care they need.