Dáil Éireann Debate, Tuesday - 29 April 2025
99. Deputy Tom Brabazon asked the Minister for Children, Equality, Disability, Integration and Youth the actions being taken since she took office to reduce waiting lists for occupational therapists, speech and language therapists and physiotherapists. [20792/25]
View answerIncreasing the Disability Sector Workforce and reducing waiting lists for therapy services is a key priority of Government.
However, the HSE and Lead Agencies are experiencing ongoing challenges recruiting to maximum capacity in the disability sector, reflective of issues affecting the wider health and social care sector and impacting the ability of the HSE and disability service providers to deliver on their vital work.
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.
A significant focus of the Government is filling vacant posts within the 93 CDNTs who are currently providing supports for circa 43,000 children. At a national level, and in response to the CDNT staffing challenges, there are rolling recruitment campaigns with employers’ talent searching in both the Irish and International markets for staff.
The HSE is focusing on increasing the pipeline to support sustained growth of CDNTs and the wider Disability service through a series of workforce initiatives tailored to the unique requirements of that service:
• A Student Sponsorship Programme was advertised by the HSE earlier this month and will support Health and Social Care Professional (HSCP) graduates to take up a job in CDNTs by providing financial sponsorship for part of their education costs and matching them to a job in a CDNT.
• In mid-May 2025 the first ever virtual career fair is taking place with a focus on Disabilities and a career in CDNTs. This will feature HSE, Section 38 and Section 39 CDNT staff across a range of professions.
• Section 38 and 39 organisations now have access to www.hse.ie/jobs and HSE talent pools registered with the HSE’s CareerHub portal. This portal has more than 41,000 registered applicants, which substantially expands their advertising and engagement into targeted applicant pools.
The Annual CDNT Workforce Survey indicates that, as of October 2024, the CDNT workforce has grown to 1866 Whole Time Equivalents (WTE). This represents a year-on-year growth of 17% from October 2023 figures, equating to an additional 272 WTE in the workforce.
Workforce issues are also being tackled through the implementation of the Progressing Disability Services (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.
At the direction of my Department, an Assistant National Director for the Disabilities Workforce has been appointed within the HSE, to drive disability workforce initiatives with particular emphasis on CDNTs. Finally, a dedicated Disability Workforce Strategy will be developed in 2025, to meet growing service demands and address recruitment and retention challenges across specialist disability services.
