I wish to ask the Tánaiste about the children's disability network teams, CDNTs. Madison Maher is seven years old. She lives on the northside of Dublin. Maddie has an autism diagnosis. She is non-verbal and has a moderate learning disability. Maddie's assessment of need was carried out when she was just three years old. Since then, she has not been offered any of the necessary supports from the CDNT. She is on a waiting list for speech and language therapy, a waiting list for occupational therapy and a waiting list for physiotherapy. She has never been offered any appointment. She has no estimated timeframe on when she will be offered an appointment. She has spent half her young life on waiting lists without getting any support. She now has severe problems with her feet and is likely to require surgery because of the complete lack of early intervention.

As the Tánaiste knows, timely intervention in these early years is of critical importance. Maddie's mother has lost all hope in the CDNT. She is at her wits' end trying to get the support her daughter needs urgently. They have been passed around and told that staff shortages are why Maddie is being left without any support. Maddie urgently needs supportive therapies and a long-term care plan. She urgently needs a further assessment to use an alternative communications device. She urgently needs to be seen by a clinical nurse specialist.

Maddie is not the only child being systematically failed by the State. There are thousands of children out there like her. Each child and family is enduring pain, trauma and almost constant anxiety. Parents who have to watch their children suffer every day are in a living hell. They know there are therapies that could transform their children's lives but they cannot access them and do not know if they will ever be able to do so. All their interactions with State agencies end in the same way, with waiting lists and broken promises. We know that more than one third of approved posts in CDNTs are not filled. This means there are more than 700 vacant positions, with some teams experiencing staff shortages of 60% and even 70%. How can any service operate with staff vacancy rates at these levels?

The Government promised that a new recruitment plan would finally start to address this crisis. In April, the Minister of State, Deputy Rabbitte, told this House that the latest recruitment drive had concluded in January and there had been 495 applications. Nearly five months after the latest recruitment drive ended, how many of these 495 applicants have been hired? When will the CDNTs be properly staffed and resourced? When will Maddie get the interventions and supports she urgently needs?

First, and I think Maddie is the child's name, it is not acceptable that we do not have sufficient early intervention teams in place for children at an early age. I say this because I accept the principle that early intervention makes a profound difference in a child's life and in the outcome for a child in terms of any particular need or issue that exists. The Cabinet agreed last week to accelerate an assessment of need waiting list initiative through the procurement of private assessments for families who have been waiting for a long time, with about 2,300 assessments of need being funded. There has been an additional allocation of about €11 million. This is to deal specifically with the assessment of need issue.

As the Deputy said, there has also been a substantial recruitment campaign run by the HSE in respect of the CDNTs. Some 165 new job offers have now emerged from that competition. There has been an issue in respect of recruitment more generally. This is the case notwithstanding the fact that over the last three budgets funding has been allocated for almost 800 whole-time-equivalent posts in our CDNTs across the country. We have also provided about 227 additional training places for health and social care professionals. The number of trainee posts for psychological roles has been increased to 45 annually for the next three years. We will continue to do everything we can to deal with the assessment of need issue. There was the recent decision in the High Court in this regard. We are going to have to examine this decision and the Oireachtas will have to do so too in terms of getting a system in place that will facilitate a meaningful but more timely assessment of need process for children.

Additionally, there is a need for there to be proper multidisciplinary teams with wide geographic reach to intervene and provide interventions on a continuous basis to children who require them. The assessment of need regional hubs have been rolled out across the country and are now operational. They are undertaking assessment of needs assessments. The Minister of State, Deputy Rabbitte has met with the heads of disability services in the nine CHOs monthly to monitor and discuss the progress being made in tackling the overall assessment of need backlog issue. Of course, there is a derogation in respect of recruitment and so on in disability services. There is no issue there. In the short term, to answer the Deputy's question, we made this additional allocation last week from the Cabinet of €11 million to accelerate assessments of need for up to 2,300 children and maybe close to 2,500 children.

I was not asking the Tánaiste about assessments of need.

The Deputy did.

I was giving the Tánaiste the specific example of a child who was assessed, referred to a CDNT and has been waiting for half her life and got no supports and none of the services or therapies she needs. She is now in severe difficulty as a result. I ask if the Tánaiste can answer this question. He has said 165 job offers have been made.

Yes.

This is out of 800 additional posts that he said were approved. With 700 existing vacancies, 165 job offers are not going to cut it. Maddie has waited half her life for the supports she urgently needs. She is suffering as a result of the lack of intervention. She is now likely to need surgery as a result. She cannot afford to wait any longer. Thousands of children are in the same situation and being referred to CDNTs that seem to not exist and promised services that fail to materialise. When are these children going to get the supports they need? When are these empty posts going to be filled? What are the CDNTs going to be properly resourced?

I did say earlier, as the Deputy himself referenced, there is a very significant recruitment campaign, which so far has resulted in 165 new job offers for CDNT teams.

There are 700 vacant posts.

That is so far, and the HSE is going to repeat the recruitment campaign with a view to offering more positions in this area, to ultimately properly resource the CDNT teams. I also believe we need to look at it from a human resources management perspective to make sure that people recruited into the CDNT teams have an environment that is conducive, which incentivises them and makes for a sustainable career pathway into the future.

There has been an issue with the multidisciplinary teams in terms of attracting various social and healthcare staff into the CDNT teams, perhaps in some cases because of the burden of the workload and so on. I have met with people myself, including providers, on this specific issue. Recruitment is a key part of it but also, once we recruit we must ensure that the quality of the working environment is such that we retain staff and give them career pathways into the future.