'We need to do more' for special education in Cork, Tánaiste says

WHILE “a lot of progress” has been made in the area of special education in Cork, increased efforts must be made in attracting therapists to work in Children’s Disability Network Teams (CDNTs), Tánaiste Micheál Martin has said.

Speaking to The Echo, Mr Martin said there has been “very significant investment” in education, particularly in special education, in Cork in recent years.

“We’ve 421 special classes in Cork now. That’s up from 270 in 2020. We need to do more, but I think on special ed, a lot of progress has been made,” he said.

“But on the therapy side and on the health side, I think Progressing Disability [Progressing Disability Services Programme] certainly hasn’t worked in Cork in terms of how it has been implemented and I’ve been quite critical about this.

“Children are not getting access to therapists as quickly and as early as they should and I’m very unhappy with what has happened and I’ve been pushing hard with the HSE and others to make sure that the special schools, in particular, have greater access to therapists,” he continued.

As reported earlier this month, figures from Cork Kerry Community Healthcare (CKCH) show that all of the various disciplines involved in the Cork CDNTs were understaffed as of the end of January.

“What I’m told by service providers, and I’ve spoken to Cope and I’ve spoken to Brothers of Charity, Enable Ireland as well, they’re saying the workload, the way Progressing Disability divided up the workloads, that the workload is extremely onerous on therapists and many go to other areas,” Mr Martin said.

“So for example in the stroke unit in Cork, I don’t think they’ve had the same problem in recruiting therapists and that’s been a tremendous success, Cork’s stroke unit in CUH, and other areas seem to be attracting therapists more than the child area and the disability area, so we’ve got to work with human resource management and I think we have to incentivise therapists to work in that area.”

A spokesperson for Cork Kerry Community Healthcare told The Echo earlier this month that CKCH “deeply regrets any delays for children and their families awaiting initial contact with the Children’s Disability Network Team (CDNT)” and that work is ongoing to address the delays.

“The HSE and its Section 38 and Section 39 lead agencies are operating in a very competitive global market for healthcare talent as there are significant shortages of qualified healthcare professionals across the globe.

“There is an average vacancy rate of 23% across all 11 CDNTs in Cork, with some CDNTs experiencing higher vacancy rates than others.

“CDNT services in Cork are provided by Section 38 and Section 39 agencies.

“While Section 38 agencies [Brothers of Charity Services and Cope Foundation] have been impacted by the HSE recruitment pause, Section 39 agencies [St Joseph’s Foundation, Enable Ireland, and CoAction] continue to run local recruitment campaigns.

“In addition, CKCH are currently working with National Recruitment Services as part of the HSE national recruitment CDNT targeted recruitment campaign to fill therapy vacancies in Cork and Kerry.”