Cork school yet to see promised therapists

The principal of St Paul’s Special School in Cork has said that they have yet to see a therapist in their building in Montenotte, despite being included in a pilot scheme for the restoration of therapy services to special schools which was announced in August and was due to begin in September.

Meanwhile, a spokesman for the HSE has insisted that therapists from the Childhood Network Disability Teams (CDNTs) are ‘continuing to go into the schools’.

Anne Hartnett told The Echo on Thursday that her school had not been visited by a therapist yet and expressed frustration that she and other school principals were not involved in talks about the implementation of the scheme involving the HSE, the National Council for Special Education and others.

“There are working group and steering group meetings but none that directly involved NASSP [National Association of Special School Principals] or any of the special school principals that are involved with the pilot,” said Ms Hartnett.

In terms of visits from therapists, Ms Hartnett had this to say: “From St Paul’s point of view, there’s been nothing.”

The confirmation that no therapists had been to the schools included in the pilot scheme during September came in the wake of a commitment given by Disability Minister Anne Rabbitte in the Dáil on September 18. She told three Cork TDs who had questioned her on the matter, Mick Barry, Donnchadh Ó Laoghaire and Pádraig O’Sullivan, that she had met with the HSE chief executive Bernard Gloster about ensuring the pilot scheme would begin in September.

“This requires the same level of service to be in place in the schools by the end of the month,” she said. “He [Gloster] set out to the regional executive officers and all managers that it is non-negotiable.”

Last week delivered good news in terms of a significant boost to the disability budget. Ms Rabbitte told a press conference on Tuesday that it had been increased by €336m to €3.2bn, the first time it had exceed €3bn, and spelled out that one of the priorities of the department which the increased allocation would fund was a commitment to fund 85 new positions on the CDNTs nationwide. This was on top of a recruitment process which got underway earlier this year to recruit 700 people to the CDNTs.

In a response to a Dáil question raised by Cork East TD Seán Sherlock, when he asked if funding could be made available to fund St Killian’s Special School to hire therapists privately, the HSE said that “funding for the existing level of core services within Cork Kerry Community Health Disability Services and with Section 38 and Section 39 partners in the area is significantly challenged for 2024 and into 2025”.

Fresh queries sent to last week to Cork Kerry Community Health Care to enquire when schools on the pilot scheme could expect to see therapists in their schools remain unanswered.