Vol. 1060 No. 5
6. Deputy Joan Collins asked the Minister for Children, Equality, Disability, Integration and Youth to clarify a statement in a press release by his Department on 23 September 2024 that ratifying the second optional protocol will mean that Ireland is officially bound by its terms under international law (details supplied). [42105/24]
25. Deputy Joan Collins asked the Minister for Children, Equality, Disability, Integration and Youth if a guarantee can be provided that the second optional protocol to the UNCRC will be ratified before the term of the Thirty-third Dáil concludes (details supplied); if his Department has finalised the outstanding legal obstacles; and if not, the measures required before Ireland can finally ratify this protocol. [42104/24]
I ask the Minister to clarify a statement in a press release from his Department on 23 September 2024 to the effect that ratifying the second optional protocol would mean that Ireland is officially bound by the terms under international law. It is linked to another question. Can a guarantee be provided that the second optional protocol to the UNCRC will be ratified before the end of the term of the Thirty-third Dáil? Has his Department finalised the outstanding legal obstacles? If not, I ask the Minister to outline the measures required before Ireland can ratify this important protocol.
I am taking Questions Nos. 6 and 25 together.
The Government is firmly committed to the ratification of the second optional protocol to the UN Convention on the Rights of the Child, UNCRC. Ireland signed the second optional protocol in 2000, and the Government is committed to taking the further step of ratifying it as soon as possible. Ratifying the protocol will mean that Ireland is officially bound by its terms under international law. In Irish treaty practice, the State must be in a position to meet the obligations it assumes under the terms of an international agreement from the moment it enters into force. Often, it will not be possible for the State to meet these obligations without first taking the steps required by domestic law, or otherwise, to enable it to do so.
Following consultation with the Office of the Attorney General, several legislative measures have been implemented which were necessary to ensure that Ireland is in compliance with the obligations of the optional protocol. Enactment of the Criminal Law (Sexual Offences) Act 2017 and the Criminal Justice (Victims of Crime) Act 2017 were significant steps on the pathway to the ratification of the optional protocol. The Criminal Law (Sexual Offences and Human Trafficking) Act 2024 was signed into law on 17 July 2024, which amends the Sexual Offences (Jurisdiction) Act 1996 and the Criminal Justice (Mutual Assistance) Act 2008; and provides for related matters, for the purposes of giving effect to the optional protocol to the convention on the rights of the child on the sale of children, child prostitution and child pornography.
Following enactment of this legislation, officials in my Department will work with the Office of the Attorney General on the next steps to ensure readiness across all relevant Departments. As the Deputy may be aware, Ireland ratified the third optional protocol to the UNCRC on a communication procedure in 2014. This protocol allows individual children, or those acting on their behalf, to submit complaints about specific violations of their rights under the convention and its first two optional protocols directly to the UN Committee on the Rights of the Child, provided that State is a party to those treaties.
I thank the Minister. He said it was signed in 2000 and we are still waiting for ratification. Certain legislative hurdles have had to be dealt with before we can reach that stage. The Minister said that, following enactment of the legislation, officials in his Department will work with the Office of the Attorney General on the next steps to ensure readiness across all relevant Departments. The two relevant pieces of legislation have been signed by the President. How quickly can the Minister move this forward? Can a memo be sent to all Departments and can it be ratified before the Dáil term finishes?
This has been going on for a long time. We have seen horrific media reports on the impact of child pornography on children, but we still have not ratified the convention. When Katherine Zappone was Minister she said it would be ratified before her term finished. We are still stuck in a quagmire. I have tabled many questions on this issue. I want to name Tom Brown, who continuously raises the issue of the second optional protocol. It is important that we put this in place very soon in order to protect people.
I thank the Deputy. I would make a comparison with the work completed in recent weeks on the optional protocol to the disability convention. It was an optional protocol to the treaty we had signed. Ratification had been blocked by the fact that some key legislation had not been passed. We passed the assisted decision-making legislation, which was important. I brought together an interdepartmental group in March and in Cabinet three weeks ago we announced that the optional protocol had been signed. We might discuss that in more detail later today.
I will go back to my officials and get an understanding. I suggest we could seek that a similar approach be taken in terms of an interdepartmental group. I will be honest. Given where we are in the lifetime of this Government, I am not sure if this can be established within what is quite a short timeframe. I can take the preliminary steps to ensure there is work done and whoever comes into this Department next has something ready to go rather than having to start something from scratch. If the Deputy is happy, I will progress on that basis.
I would welcome any step that can put the protocol in place so that it is not put on the long finger again when there may be a new Minister in place. It is important to do that. The Minister had said that he expected an awareness-raising campaign to commence in early 2024, and details of the campaign had yet to be decided. Can he provide me with an update on the campaign and what he has done from early 2024 to date?
I thank the Deputy. I do not have the details with me, so I will come back to her in writing on that point. It is very fair. It is important that we understand the position. My Department is highly focused on the implementation of key legislation like this. I have seen that where there is a little bit of political will behind something, we can move the ratification of an optional protocol reasonably quickly. We were able to do that with the disability one. I will ask my officials to start to reach out to other Departments and take the steps so that an interdepartmental group could be established rapidly.
Whoever is in this role next could look to progress that rapidly. We will come back to the Deputy in writing on the information campaign.
5. Deputy Rose Conway-Walsh asked the Minister for Children, Equality, Disability, Integration and Youth to provide an update on children’s disability network teams in Mayo, including staff vacancies, recruitment and waiting lists for assessment and therapy; and if he will make a statement on the matter. [43583/24]
Too many children are waiting for therapies and assessment in County Mayo. I am trying to get a grasp on the staff vacancies in the children's disability network teams, CDNTs, and the waiting lists for assessment and therapy in County Mayo.
I thank Deputy Conway-Walsh for raising this question. I acknowledge the challenges faced by children and young people in terms of accessing services, particularly essential therapy services, in Mayo. The lead agencies there are experiencing ongoing challenges in recruiting across a range of disciplines and grades to fully staff the CDNTs. Recruitment is ongoing for administrative and therapy staff in CDNTs via the HSE recruitment process. Since March 2024, there has been a net increase of seven whole-time equivalents, recruited from national and local campaigns into the existing panels of the CDNTs in Mayo. A number of posts are approved but have not yet been filled or have been at least accepted but the new person has not yet started.
Under the progressing disabilities model, CDNTs offer interdisciplinary support. They do not maintain waiting lists for individual assessments or therapies. Wait times for the CDNTs are not recorded per discipline but, rather, as per national key metrics since children's disability services reconfigured. As of September this year, 14 children across the Mayo CDNTs are waiting zero to three months for an initial CDNT contact.
There are many important HSE initiatives to address staffing and these will have benefits in Mayo, as well as in my own constituency and throughout the country. International recruitment is looking to draw people back, particularly graduates from Ireland who have gone abroad to the UK, the USA or Australia. There are relocation supports to support that. There is quite a generous package of relocation supports to make it more attractive for people to move back here and start working on the CDNTs. We have also enhanced the ability of the section 38 organisations and particularly the section 39 organisations to recruit. They can now recruit through the HSE website. There is also work under way to capture graduates early. The HSE engages directly with health and social care professionals graduating from Irish universities them to encourage them to join CDNTs or CAMHS teams around the country.
I thank the Minister. The reality is that there are still too many vacancies. I take what the Minister is saying in terms of trying to attract staff. However, continually having vacant posts puts pressure on the workers who are there already. Last week, I was at a wonderful initiative with Mayo Autism Camp and Manulla FC. There were many parents and children there. Although the day was really wonderful, I could not help thinking of all those children who were there on the day and were waiting for vital therapies and assessments. We are failing children with disabilities in Mayo and that cannot continue.
The Minister referred to section 38 workers. The promises to them have not been kept. There has been a reneging on the negotiations that were to be done with the Workplace Relations Commission, WRC. There are many things that can be fixed but until all of the positions are filled within the CDNTs, we are not going to be giving the necessary support to these children.
I fully agree with the Deputy on the challenges of recruitment. It is the big challenge in disabilities services right now. The core solution to that is to train more health and social care professionals, occupational therapists, speech and language therapists, physiotherapists and psychiatrists. We need more of them because the level of demand and need has increased, both because of enhanced levels of autism among children and young people and also because older people with a disability are living longer, and that is good, but it means their needs are greater and we need more therapists there. That is why the longer-term piece that I and the Minister of State, Deputy Rabbitte, have undertaken with the Taoiseach and the Minister, Deputy O'Donovan, to open up more CAO places for these courses is really important. This year, universities all over Ireland will significantly increase places in occupational therapy and speech and language therapy. We are doing some work with Belfast as well. It will take a number of years for those students to be trained. That is why the interim measures I set out in terms of that international recruitment to get people into positions now is really important.
That is part of the problem. Fine Gael has been in Government for the past 13 or 14 years and now we are looking to address these situations. The workforce planning should have been in place well before now. It is not a big surprise that there is such a high number of children with disabilities in need of support. I would say that this Government has failed children with disabilities and their families in County Mayo.
We will not even address scoliosis and the 15-year-old child I have coming in to who, because his operation was delayed, is now being turned away and cannot even get a second opinion. Saying he is not fit to travel is all very well but he cannot even get a second opinion that could be done online or by handing the file over to somebody in England or America. I know this is not the Minister’s portfolio - it comes under health - but I ask him to be compassionate in cases where families are just turned away and told they have been failed and they cannot have the scoliosis operation. I apologise but I could not leave without mentioning this case that I am trying to deal with. This 15-year-old child deserves more.
I thank Deputy Conway-Walsh for her passionate advocacy on behalf of that child and his family.
What I have done as Minister is to recognise that for so long disability was the poor relation within the Department of Health. We have taken it out of the Department of Health and brought it into my Department. That applied from March 2023, more than 18 months ago. There is so much more that I and the Minister of State, Deputy Rabbitte, would have loved to do, if we had the time to do it. However, in those 18 months we have recruited a person in the HSE to look just at workforce planning for the disability sector. For the first time, there is a clear focus on what the disability sector needs. For the first time, there are two Ministers actively engaging with the HSE board and the HSE chief executive and saying “Bernard, we know cancer care is important and the issue of trolleys in emergency departments is important but we need you to focus on disability every single day.” We are seeing changes. We got the optional protocol ratified and we got the new national disability strategy which is to be published in the next number of weeks. Changes are happening but I absolutely recognise there is a long way to go to support children and families on our CDNTs. I acknowledge that.
7. Deputy Claire Kerrane asked the Minister for Children, Equality, Disability, Integration and Youth to provide an update on the publication of the early childhood care and education review; and if he will make a statement on the matter. [43559/24]
I wish to ask the Minister about the publication of the review of the early childhood care and education, ECCE, scheme. I believe it has been published and I welcome that. Will the Minister give us some detail on his response to that review? I understand it was completed in April. Why did it take so long to publish it? It is something for which the sector has been asking for quite some time.
I thank the Deputy. It was published on Tuesday. We are delighted to publish it. I am delighted to have published it because I asked for this to be undertaken. There is a lot happening in the early years section in my Department. We had a busy summer negotiating another really successful budget. We have been bringing out extra support for AIMS, rolling out equal start and the new DEIS model. I have to prioritise and getting the money for next year was my priority.
We have now published the review. It is an international review carried out by Stranmillis University College in Belfast. Some of the key findings are that the ECCE programme has been meeting its aims in terms of providing universal and free preschool, promoting socio-emotional and cognitive outcomes for children and narrowing the gap in attainment for children from disadvantaged backgrounds. It is clear that this programme has altered early learning experiences and development opportunities for all children, and particularly for children experiencing disadvantage.
I took a number of steps in my term of office even before this was published in order that more people could access ECCE. The first was broadening out AIM support. AIM allows children taking ECCE to get additional support up to and including the provision of a worker.
That used to just be for three hours of ECCE. It has now been extended for the full day. Perhaps most significantly is the equal start and DEIS model for early years and additional supports for children with the most disadvantaged backgrounds. It is important that they can access ECCE. The ECCE participation rate in the Traveller community is about 15% less than in the settled community. On day one of junior infants, these kids are already two years behind their classmates which continues throughout their lives. That is why supporting access to ECCE for vulnerable children, because of socioeconomic disadvantage or a disability, has been crucial for me. I appreciate the work done in my Department by officials in advancing these important targeted schemes.
I too welcome the publication of the report. The ECCE is an important scheme, which I acknowledge. The report acknowledges the very good points and positives in relation to ECCE. It is important for parents, children and providers because where it is provided it is very well done. Some of the challenges the report highlighted are around availability, accessibility, the hours and weeks and the adult-child ratio. Parts of the report are learnings and will provide the Department with ideas around changes and flexibility. Concerning the next steps now that it has been published and given the space we are in now, will there be an implementation plan? How does the Minister see this moving forward?
An interesting point is that more than 1 million children have done ECCE, about one fifth of our population, as it has been available since 2009. The next steps will be a decision for the next Government. I have strong views. I agree with the Deputy. ECCE is the cornerstone of early learning and care. I would love to see it on a statutory basis so that every child would have a legal right to ECCE in the same way as primary and secondary school places. I would legislate for that. The capacity issue is huge. If there is a legal obligation on the State to provide a place, then the State has to do more to provide the place. I spoke to the Deputy about my view of a greater public role in the provision of childcare. We start in areas with insufficient spaces and where capacity is low. The State should become a player, perhaps through ETBs or something like that. It should have the role alongside private and community providers in delivering ECCE and broader early learning and care.
I thank the Minister. With that said, it is for the next Government. It is important that this report is passed on and acted upon as quickly as possible because it is an important programme. We need to ensure that where changes can be made to improve it, that happens for the benefit of everybody. That is all I can say because the report has been published, which I welcome.
I am interested in a mid-year entry point, which there was originally but was removed. Where a child is born just on the cusp of the next year, it can be frustrating for parents. It is worth considering that day-to-day change in the operation of the scheme. We spoke earlier about early years professionals. Ultimately, it comes down to State investment because if the State is to be more directly involved, which I think it should, it will cost capital and current money in terms of the employment of staff. We spoke about better pay for staff in the private and community sector as well. All of this will take greater investment. It is the right thing to do. I doubled investment in early years in the past four years. The next Government will have to continue that significant ramp-up in spending in this area. It is some of the best money the State can spend.
8. Deputy Pauline Tully asked the Minister for Children, Equality, Disability, Integration and Youth if he will consider undertaking a stakeholder review of the Progressing Disability Services model; and if he will make a statement on the matter. [43542/24]
Will the Minister consider undertaking a stakeholder review of the progressing disability services model in light of the fact that it does not work on many fronts?
The implementation of the progressing disability services programme is agreed Government and HSE policy. This policy supports the reconfiguration of children's disability services to provide equitable child- and family-centred services based on need rather than diagnosis. Crucially, this aligns with the UN Convention on the Rights of Persons with Disabilities. The HSE's roadmap for service improvement 2023-26, disability services for children and young people, was approved by the HSE board and launched last October. It is a targeted service improvement programme to achieve a quality, accessible, equitable and timely service for all children with complex needs as a result of disability and for their families. The delays in accessing children’s therapy interventions are acknowledged and work is ongoing by the HSE to maximise the capacity of children’s disability network teams, CDNTs, through recruitment campaigns and other measures, including sourcing assessments through the private sector.
Regarding a review of the progressing disability services model, I advise the Deputy that this matter is provided for in the HSE’s roadmap for service improvement. I engaged with a number of organisations and stakeholders on the shape of the review, including a stakeholder review. The stakeholders involved currently include the HSE, the NDA and Fórsa as well as the Department. I am informed by the HSE that work is ongoing to finalise the scoping of the relevant elements of the review of the CDNT model of service, with the most recent engagement taking place on Monday, 21 October. Detailed feedback from this meeting between the HSE and Fórsa is awaited from the HSE. We are taking initial steps and reaching out to key stakeholders to get the framework for how this review will be implemented. It will be valuable.
The progressing disabilities model is not working on many fronts. There were 91 CDNTs established before the end of 2021. According to the HSE census from a year ago, only one of those teams was fully staffed. A number were close but quite a number had vacancy rates up to 70%. A team cannot function with a vacancy rate of 70% or even 50% or 30%. Many children have no access to their CDNTs. They wait years for any sort of assessment or service. Two parents' representatives on the national steering group for progressing disabilities, Aisling Byrne and Rebecca O'Riordan, resigned during the summer because they felt they were getting nowhere. They did not go in there because they thought it would be easy, they went in to put forward the point of view of parents and representing their children through the CDNTs. It was not vindictive but they felt it was not set up properly, they were not being listened to and things were not being discussed. They felt it was not going anywhere. They also pointed out that there was no stakeholder involvement in the creation of the roadmap, which is serious. If we want these teams to work, which we all do, we need to include everybody who has a stake in those discussions.
I cannot disagree with anything the Deputy said in terms of the challenge the significant level of vacancy poses for the CDNTs all over the country and their ability to deliver crucial interventions for children and the subsequent improvements in quality of life for families. The next Government will look at the progressing disabilities model and have an opportunity to make decisions. We have to be clear that until there are enough therapists, it does not matter if we call it progressing disability services or something else; we need more therapists. That is why the HSE has a workforce planning team in place looking at how to increase the number of health and social care professionals across the HSE and to encourage them into CDNTs. The Minister of State, Deputy Rabbitte, and I have undertaken work with the Department of higher and further education to increase the number of places to train more therapists each year, which will bear fruit. I recognise it is not bearing fruit now but it will in a number of years.
We have been hearing about a recruitment campaign for quite some time. The progressing disability model was drawn up in 2013 or 2014, I think. At that time, workforce planning was not done and we now do not have sufficient therapists. I acknowledge it will take time to educate enough therapists but there is no guarantee they will work in disability services. There are many other areas they could work in and many are leaving and going to work in other countries where they can do their jobs.
I feel sorry for therapists and CDNTs who want to do their job but are unable to because of the lack of staff on their team. They end up dealing all the time with understandably irate parents whose children are not being seen or assessed in time or getting therapies. It also annoys parents very much when they are told there have been a certain number of engagements. They are counting phone calls and letters to parents and parents going on courses as engagement with the child. Many decisions are being made about children who have not been seen by the team. That is quite serious.
I take the Deputy's point on getting the therapists who will graduate in years to come where they are most needed. I look at what Tusla did in terms of social workers. Every social worker who graduates from an Irish university gets an offer of employment from Tusla. That is extremely attractive and has been very good in bringing not all social workers, but a significant number to do work and training with Tusla directly. I will continue to engage with Bernard Gloster.
I spoke in response to an earlier question about specific measures to encourage new health and social care graduates into CDNTs and CAMHS. We need to strengthen that. I am sure primary care and older people services are looking for these graduates as well but we have to take a strategic decision that children's disability services and, most people would agree, CAMHS are the least staffed areas across the HSE and are where the HSE should be targeting all new graduates to bring them in and let them do their training. That will reduce pressures on lists and make staying there more attractive.
9. Deputy Neasa Hourigan asked the Minister for Children, Equality, Disability, Integration and Youth when the optional protocol to the UN Convention on the Rights of Persons with Disabilities will be formally ratified; what mechanisms will be available to complainants once ratified; and if he will make a statement on the matter. [43343/24]
The Minister has mentioned this a couple of times this morning. I think we are all delighted to hear we are moving ahead with the optional protocol on the UN Convention on the Rights of Persons with Disabilities. Can we get an update on the formal ratification and on the mechanisms that may be available to complainants once it is ratified?
I thank the Deputy. She has raised this with me regularly in my time as Minister. I was pleased to announce on 8 October that the Government made the important decision to formally accede to the optional protocol to the United Nations Convention on the Rights of Persons with Disabilities, delivering on a key programme for Government commitment. This decision marks a milestone moment for Ireland and demonstrates our ongoing commitment to the realisation of the rights and obligations set out in the convention. Furthermore, it reflects our ongoing drive to improve the lives of persons with disability in this country.
On foot on the Government's decision, Ireland’s instrument of accession, signed by the Tánaiste and Minister for Foreign Affairs, will be deposited with the UN Secretary General in the coming weeks. The optional protocol will enter into force with respect to the State on the 30th day following that deposit. It is anticipated that the optional protocol will have entered into force by the end of 2024. The accession instrument has been signed by the Tánaiste and is with the permanent mission of Ireland to the United Nations in New York. The document is over there so we are nearly there.
The optional protocol will enable people who feel their rights under the convention have been breached to submit a communication to the relevant UN committee, which may then make recommendations to the State to redress the matter. In that regard, the optional protocol is an important accountability mechanism for implementation of the convention. The relevant information, guidance and complaint forms are available on the website of the UN Human Rights Office of the High Commissioner. Accession to the optional protocol forms part of Ireland’s broader approach to compliance with the convention, and ultimately will assist in furthering the State’s progressive implementation of the convention in an important way. Intensive work is ongoing across government to develop Ireland’s next national disability strategy, which will form the implementation plan to advance delivery of the rights as set out in the convention over the coming years.
People throughout the country will be delighted to hear it hopefully will be in place before the end of 2024. A huge number of people in the past five years have worked and campaigned hard to ensure there is governance and oversight in how we implement the UNCRPD. If I understand what the Minister has outlined, it is a relationship between the UN and the people of Ireland and then the UN communicates with the State of Ireland. I ask about this because persons with disabilities and their families, carers, mammies and daddies are tired. They are filling in endless forms and making endless phone calls. I want to ensure the optional protocol, which I hope we will not have to use too often, is accessible to them. I assume that if it falls short, Ireland can engage with the UN to ensure those accessibility issues are minimised.
We all want a country where people with disabilities and their families do not feel they need to take up the provisions of the optional protocol and feel that Ireland is meeting their full rights under the UNCRPD. We know we are not there yet and have a lot of work to do to get to that place. We have been able to do some important things in the past four and a half years, particularly since disability came over to my Department, but we recognise there is still a big gap. One of the ways we are recognising this is putting in this new level of accountability. We can now be held accountable in front of the world when we have not met our international commitments to people with disabilities. The United Nations will have its own mechanism in terms of how people access it. Many DPOs across the country will be looking to support cases and submissions. Our Department actively supports DPOs. Sometimes it will be a stick to beat our own back with but that has to be done because we have to have accountability if the State fails people with a disability.
It is worth reiterating we would all want to live in an Ireland where nobody needs the optional protocol. Unfortunately, as the Minister said, we are not there yet. I too hope and expect the optional protocol will work as a motivator for the State because of the cost of not doing enough. The stakes are raised. Has the Minister's Department, or other Departments such as finance or public expenditure, NDP delivery and reform, undertaken a review of whether, in the current situation, the optional protocol poses a significant cost concern to the State?
I agree with the Minister that we need accountability. Regarding the announcement around the accession to the optional protocol, the lack of clarity around timelines has been quite dubious. I found it deeply strange there was no clarification. The announcement did not say when it would be signed or lodged, just that the Government was choosing to accede. This was announced after the budget, so there was no new funding for vindication of the optional protocol.
I have been trying to get clarity on whether the instrument has been signed and deposited to the Secretary General. The Minister said it has been signed, is with the UN and is "over there". What does that imply? I feel this is another commitment in principle. The Minister says it will be by year end, but there is an election coming. People with disabilities have been waiting a long time for the UNCRPD to be ratified but this further delay with the optional protocol is disappointing.
There is no further delay. I am not quite sure what the Deputy is talking about. We have agreed as Government to sign the optional protocol and sent the accession documents to New York, which is how it is done. They will be delivered by the Irish representative in the United Nations to the United Nations disability committee and 30 days later the optional protocol will be binding on Ireland - that will be by the end of this year. There is no delay----
Do we not have a date?
-----and no lack of clarity on that point.
On Deputy Hourigan's point, it will be a motivator. It motivated our Department on the assisted decision-making legislation and is an important motivator behind the mental health legislation passing through the Houses right now. There have been analyses and there are areas where Ireland is vulnerable. Universal design, which the Deputy has placed a focus on, is one area. Early intervention and assessment of needs is another area in which we are vulnerable. As a Government, State and Department, we will be responding to and addressing each of those areas to bring us closer to compliance.
10. Deputy Pauline Tully asked the Minister for Children, Equality, Disability, Integration and Youth the reasons for the delays in accessing augmentative and alternative communication through children’s disability network teams; what actions will be taken to speed this process up; and if he will make a statement on the matter. [43541/24]
Will the Minister address the reasons for the delays in accessing augmentative and alternative devices through children's disability network teams? What actions can or will be taken to speed up the process?
I thank the Deputy. In line with the progressing disability services model, 93 children’s disability network teams are aligned to 96 community healthcare networks across the country and provide services and supports for children from birth to 18 years of age. Part of services provided by CDNTs and primary care services includes assessment for, prescription, provision and training for children and families in the use of required assistive technologies, which include augmentative and alternative communication.
One of the 60 actions included in the HSE’s Roadmap for Service Improvement 2023–2026: Disability Services for Children and Young People is to review access to assistive devices to ensure consistency across all CHOs and CDNTs. In that regard, the Department and HSE are progressing work with WHO/Europe on a collaborative agreement on digital assistive technology. This partnership will include three core streams of work covering a review of Ireland’s assistive technology capacity through a multi-stakeholder approach and development of an assistive products list, the development of workforce optimisation initiatives using digital tools focusing on assessments and intervention, and progressing two global DAT-workforce expos, with the first hosted by Ireland in 2026.
While this is under way, the HSE is funding AsIAm to help this organisation administer the AAC programme communication devices, which include tablets and other electronic devices provided to people with autism to support their communication needs. The HSE has committed €1 million to AsIAm to be allocated to programme running costs, including staff recruitment, software utilisation costs and procurement of an estimated 511 AAC devices such as tablets. The next phase of implementation follows the completion of consultation, procurement and recruitment processes to support the operational phase of delivery.
I thank the Minister. As an example, I was recently contacted by a parent whose eldest son is autistic and whose younger son has just been diagnosed as autistic. She is familiar with the needs of her children and describes her younger son as pre-verbal. He needs support now. She has contacted the CDNT about getting him the support he needs prior to him starting school, because it is going to make such a difference. She keeps being put off and told she needs to take this course or another course, that those courses are full and she will be fitted in next year. She is just seeing the days, weeks and months slipping by as her child does not get the support he requires because the CDNT keeps telling her she cannot be included on these courses. She then heard, quite upsettingly, that one of the courses is not even full, but she is still not being offered a place on it because she has to do another course prior to that. She says she has undertaken so many of these courses already that she knows much of the setting up of the device is left to the parent anyway, so she finds this really frustrating.
I am aware AsIAm is working with the Department and going to pilot a scheme. I will come back to that.
I thank the Deputy. I can absolutely understand the frustration there, especially if her constituent is hearing the course is not full. That is hugely frustrating. Maybe the Deputy could drop a note to the Minister of State, Deputy Rabbitte, and me and we could look to follow it up with the CHO to get some clarification and ensure this person is able to avail of the course as quickly as possible. Having met children, young people and parents in my constituency, I have seen the huge advantages assistive technology can bring and the huge supports it brings to children, their parents and maybe a wider school community as well through its use in ASD classes or special schools. That is why the Minister of State, Deputy Rabbitte, has undertaken this international piece of work trying to work with the World Health Organization on really mainstreaming assistive technology and letting Ireland be a pilot location for the roll-out of the best supports that are available.
The Minister has mentioned AsIAm and the pilot programme. Adam Harris and another young person were before the committee last week and they referenced the delay in accessing devices for children who need them and that their organisation would be rolling out a pilot programme. That is fantastic. The organisation does fantastic work. I also commend CAPS in my area for the fantastic work it does. A point made to me by a person in CAPS is the HSE is frequently referring children to it for supports and services, yet the group gets absolutely no support. That is unfair because it is a charitable organisation and requires support.
On devices and speedy access to them, there needs to be better joined-up thinking between the schools and the Department of Education and the Department of disability. We were talking about putting therapists back into special schools, but we need to roll out more therapists into other schools, because otherwise we are going to have parents sending children to special schools because there is access to therapists there when they might have been fine in a mainstream school if they had been getting the supports there. The devices are going to be required both at home and in school, so there needs to be a much better connection between the two.
That point about integration between health supports health supports provided through my Department and the HSE and education supports provided through the Department of Education and the NCSE is very important. What I have seen in the new Cabinet committee on children and education and disability is we have those opportunities to ensure we are able to address the gaps which results in children falling between two stools. One of the things I have been able to do concerns the data my Department has about the number of children who have AIM support in an area, which is early intervention in preschool. That data was not going to the NCSE or the HSE and it is a really important pointer. There are maybe 30 kids in Blanchardstown who get AIM-level support. Many of those are probably going to need an ASD class or indeed a special school when they move on to primary school. That information was not being exchanged and it is now. We have put in place a data exchange agreement and, because we are bringing the two Departments closer together, we are seeing where those gaps are. In that case it was to do with information, but we can do it with access to assistive technology as well.
11. Deputy Paul Murphy asked the Minister for Children, Equality, Disability, Integration and Youth if he will estimate the length of time for which there will be no reporting on childcare cases in light of the ending of funding for a project (details supplied); and if he will make a statement on the matter. [43568/24]
The Child Law Project has done extremely important work in shining a light on the multiple ways this State fails children, especially vulnerable children. There has, however, been no reporting of childcare proceedings since June because the Minister ended funding for the Child Law Project. Will the Minister tell us when funding will restart and reporting can recommence? In particular, will he tell us that will happen before the coming election?
I thank the Deputy. My Department renews the court reporting project periodically through a competitive tender process. The current iteration of the court reporting project began in November 2021 and will expire on 31 October 2024, over which period funding totalling €600,000 will have been provided to the Child Law Project. My Department is currently prioritising the development of a new procurement process and intends that a new phase of court reporting will commence in January of next year. The current iteration of the project has been delivered by the Child Law Project, which was successful in its tender application in 2021. In accordance with the funding agreement and work plan under this iteration of the project, the CLP ceased attending proceedings in June of this year and published a final volume of court reports in relation to this period on 8 July. The final analytical report for this phase is due for publication on 4 November.
I have met the Child Law Project a number of times over the lifetime of this Government. Its work is hugely valuable. Its work is instructive to my Department, to Tusla and a range of Departments and State agencies. I have been involved with its work and project staff a number of times. I launched some of the project's reports and met with its staff to hear first hand the types of cases it is experiencing. There is a delay and I recognise that. I have told my departmental officials to prioritise the new tendering process. I am confident reporting will be back in January of next year.
The question that is begged is why there is this delay. This was foreseeable. The period was coming to an end and there was going to be a new tendering process, so why this gap, at the very least, in funding? I will read a selection of headlines from the last volume of reports from the Child Law Project. They include "Court hears of a 'spectacular example of statutory agencies not working together' in case of autistic teenager", "Judge joins CAMHS as notice party to explain why a child on priority list for over 18 months had not received any service", "Large number of cases re-entered in Dublin District Court because no allocated social worker", "Special care system 'in crisis', lack of special care beds 'a tsunami about to reach shore and nothing is being done' – High Court judge", "Court hears of lack of special care bed for boy missing in care, judge outlines questions for SEAs", and "No bed for very vulnerable girl under special care order; allegation she had been raped while in care, fear of sexual exploitation; Judge: 'This is the worst case I have ever come across."
This is important work that sheds a light. The question must be asked whether this gap or delay in funding is effectively an attempt to lean on the Child Law Project and to tell it to tone it down and stop being so critical of the State.
It is not. The Child Law Project is very important in shining a light on where the State has failed. We learn from that. One of the responses I have made to the work the project has done and my engagement with other NGOs working in this area has been to convene a new committee of statutory agencies. We are bringing together the HSE, Tusla, An Garda Síochána, my Department and the Department of Health because it is too often the case that the types of headlines the Deputy has read out on the experiences children have faced have been the result of State agencies not working together. State agencies are minding their own patches and are not prepared to step outside that in urgent situations. That is why we are bringing together this committee in which individual State agencies can be called to account and driven to co-operate better with each other for the betterment of children. That sort of knowledge comes directly from the work of the Child Law Project.
We still do not have an adequate explanation. Again, this is not a surprise. The period of funding was going to run out and there was going to be a new tender process and yet there is still a gap. There are two possible explanations. One is the political motivation of leaning on the project. The Minister says that is not the case. The other explanation is no more satisfactory. It is about the underfunding and understaffing of the Department of children and low priority being given to child protection. They are the two possible explanations and neither look good as regards the priorities of this Government. The Minister said that the funding will be in place by January of next year. I presume that means the tendering process is going to start very shortly. Will he tell us when that process will open?
Before the Minister comes in, I call Deputy Durkan.
Will the Minister indicate the extent, if any, to which intervention on behalf of children is restricted where those children are the subject matter of litigation in the family law courts? Has the in camera rule restricted the ability of Tusla to intercede on their behalf?
That was a supplemental question to this question.
I thank Deputy Durkan. I will need to come back to him if I am to give him a comprehensive answer. If it is all right, I will come back to him in writing on that question.
The tendering process will begin in November. I met with the Child Law Project in March and set out our position. We have brought in legislation on assisted decision-making, which also involves a reporting element. At some stage in the future, we may tender for reporting on child law and assisted decision-making together. Even though it does amazing work, we cannot just award the Child Law Project the contract in the interim. There has to be a tendering process. That is why there is a shorter one-year process rather than the usual three-year process. That will bring us to a point at which we may amalgamate the two. It was that change in approach that led to delays. I am not happy about it. There has been entirely justified criticism of it. However, I assure the Deputy that the funding is in place and that the tendering process will open in November. It is a truncated process and we will see reporting in January of next year.
Deputy Murphy missed his priority question.
I did. I am sorry. There was confusion on our side.
I will break some of the rules as we are near the end. I ask the Deputy to be as brief as possible. I will then move on to Deputy Ó Cathasaigh.
