Peadar Tóibín (Meath West, Aontú)
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7. To ask the Taoiseach when the Cabinet committee on children and education and disability will next meet [37628/24]

Ruairi Ó Murchú (Louth, Sinn Fein)
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8. To ask the Taoiseach when the Cabinet committee on children and education and disability will meet next. [37662/24]

Mick Barry (Cork North Central, Solidarity)
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9. To ask the Taoiseach when the Cabinet committee on children and education and disability will meet next. [38046/24]

Bernard Durkan (Kildare North, Fine Gael)
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10. To ask the Taoiseach when the Cabinet committee on children and education and disability will meet next. [39168/24]

Ruairi Ó Murchú (Louth, Sinn Fein)
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11. To ask the Taoiseach when the Cabinet committee on children and education and disability will meet next. [41193/24]

Richard Boyd Barrett (Dún Laoghaire, People Before Profit Alliance)
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12. To ask the Taoiseach when the Cabinet committee on children and education and disability will meet next. [43248/24]

Cian O'Callaghan (Dublin Bay North, Social Democrats)
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13. To ask the Taoiseach when the Cabinet committee on children and education and disability will meet next. [43254/24]

Simon Harris (Wicklow, Fine Gael)
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I propose to take Questions Nos. 7 to 13, inclusive, together.

The Cabinet committee on children and education and disability oversees programme for Government commitments relating to children, education and disability and receives detailed reports on identified policy areas such as child poverty and well-being, education and the reform of disability services. Disability services are a key focus for the Government, and that is why I established this Cabinet committee.

The membership of the Cabinet committee comprises me, the Tánaiste and Minister for Foreign Affairs and for Defence, the Minister for the Environment, Climate and Communications and for Transport, the Minister for Health, the Minister for Children, Equality, Disability, Integration and Youth, the Minister for Education, the Minister for Public Expenditure, NDP Delivery and Reform, the Minister for Finance, the Minister for Social Protection and for Rural and Community Development, the Minister for Housing, Local Government and Heritage, and the Minister for Further and Higher Education, Research, Innovation and Science. The Minister of State with special responsibility for special education and inclusion and the Minister of State with responsibility for disability also participate in all of the Cabinet committee meetings.

Other Ministers or Ministers of State are invited to participate as required. To date, since I established the committee in May, four meetings of it have taken place.

Peadar Tóibín (Meath West, Aontú)
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Care in this country is met with rhetoric rather than resources. At the start of this year we had the care referendum, when the Government promised a new era, but when we look at the delivery of care, including children in State care which I mentioned earlier, nursing home care and childcare, we see that resources are not nearly enough to deliver what should be a decent level of care in these sectors. The provision of childcare is a public good but it is more than this. It is a necessity for many families who simply cannot get off the economic treadmill that necessitates them paying their mortgages. If they did, the whole world would come tumbling down.

There is a parallel universe on the issue of childcare. For sure the Government will speak about increased investment in childcare and the fact it has reduced fees in the sector. The truth is that when we speak to providers and parents in the sector, they will say it is far harder for providers to exist and far harder for parents to access childcare. The reason is that many of these providers have had their incomes and fees frozen but they have increased input costs. This is making it less viable for them to function. In the second quarter of this year, 31 childcare services in Dublin closed down. This is mirrored throughout the country. It is a trend that has been happening for years. Every time I raise this with the Minister, Deputy O'Gorman, it is very frustrating because there is a straitjacket instinct that the Government is providing money, more money is going in, it is less costly on parents and this is where the issue stops. It should not stop there. The Taoiseach mentioned he wants to be a Taoiseach for small businesses. He should realise that small businesses are being hammered with increased input costs. Only childcare seems to have the fees frozen also, which is a double whammy for the sector. I ask the Taoiseach to take this issue seriously and to make sure we have a system whereby the providers of childcare and workers in childcare are properly compensated for the service they deliver so there are more services and families can access them.

Ruairi Ó Murchú (Louth, Sinn Fein)
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I spoke to Taoiseach recently about autism units in Louth and Dundalk, and the fact there are 18 secondary schools in Louth and only half of them provide units. We could decide to hammer the schools but when we speak to schools such as the Marist, it will speak about going over and back with the NCSE and the Department and say that it has been far from perfect. With regard to primary schools, I have told the Taoiseach about Sheelagh National School which wanted to speak to somebody in the building unit in the Department so the agreed units could be built and put in place. I have also spoken previously about De La Salle College and other schools and the need for the work to happen. This is all absolutely necessary. My Education (Amendment) Bill would allow for parents of kids with disabilities to apply two years early. We need to look at this type of solution. In the schools it is about the school inclusion model so we get the best bang for our buck with regard to occupational therapists, speech and language therapists, physiotherapists and others, not just in special schools but also in regular schools with a shared service. This is what needs to happen.

I will take 20 seconds on an issue regarding a paramedic in Dundalk. I have not found any other method to deal with it. This is someone in the defence forces who was trained by the National Ambulance Service. Sonya Larrigan has retired from the Defence Forces and has gone into the National Ambulance Service but it is not accepting her credentials for increments.

Aindrias Moynihan (Cork North West, Fianna Fail)
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You should not name people.

Ruairi Ó Murchú (Louth, Sinn Fein)
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There has been an over and back. I will finish on this.

Aindrias Moynihan (Cork North West, Fianna Fail)
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We are moving on to the next speaker.

Ruairi Ó Murchú (Louth, Sinn Fein)
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She is an advanced paramedic and the National Ambulance Service is not accepting this. She is not able to carry out life-saving operations and this is not good enough.

Bernard Durkan (Kildare North, Fine Gael)
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The importance of children and their education and care in all circumstances, in respect of access to primary and second level education for children with or without disabilities, and with regard to the security of children who might be in the care of the State, has special focus at the present time and is likely to have special focus in the time ahead. This has come into focus in recent times, particularly with regard to children who may have gone missing and who have been missing for a considerable amount of time. We need to put a particular and special emphasis on the way in which this is managed. In another area, where the family law courts are correctly being reviewed and revised, it is important that children's interests are protected in the course of family law. This is not necessarily the same in all cases. There are circumstances where the proceedings are biased against children and biased against their parents. This eventually comes back on the children and puts them in a vulnerable position.

Richard Boyd Barrett (Dún Laoghaire, People Before Profit Alliance)
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Earlier I made the point to the Taoiseach that I think games or deceptions are being played with regard to what is happening to recruit the staff we need in various areas of the health service. The Taoiseach did not like it when I spoke about deception. This question is about children. I want to refer the Taoiseach to the figures, which are the HSE's figures and not mine. If we ask detailed questions, we get some of the detailed information. This is with regard to children's disability network teams. It is a very serious issue. There are 110,000 children waiting for therapies and not getting them. They are waiting years to get them. They are getting a tiny fraction of what they need. I was just looking at the recruitment report, which is a month-by-month report over a three-year period. In April 2022 in my area of CHO 6, 170 posts were allocated and there were 114 staff. At that time 1,000 people were wait-listed. By the time we got to March 2023, there were 184 posts allocated but only 120 people were in posts. This was massively short of what was needed. There were 1,217 people in total waiting across all of the CDNTs. There was a significant increase in the number of people waiting but, incredibly, there were fewer staff. I apologise; the figure I gave is for October 2022. In October 2022, 129 staff were working and by March 2023 there were only 120 staff. The number of staff was dropping. All of the staff numbers are well below what is supposed to be on those teams. How can the Taoiseach say that recruitment is happening if we are seeing the numbers falling?

Paul Murphy (Dublin South West, RISE)
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I want to raise a particular case which illustrates the horrendous situation facing parents looking for childcare in this country and how unstable and insecure it can be. More than 130 families lost their crèche places last Friday. It is an incredible situation where a particular crèche, Krafty Kids, was evicted from St. Mary's GAA club in Saggart. On 6 October one of the crèche owners received a message from auctioneer and vice chairman of the club's committee, Ray Cooke, to inform them that their property in the upstairs rooms, including children's playthings, was being removed, their access to the upstairs rooms was being removed and they had to be completely off the premises by last Friday, 18 October. This then came to pass and they have been evicted. One parent of a child in the crèche said that Krafty Kids is a huge part of the local community, serving more than 130 families, and does a superb job of caring for the little ones. This person said that St. Mary's GAA club, by failing to engage with Krafty Kids and forcing it out, has put an amazing group of ladies out of work and has left hard-working parents with no childcare and the children without their community of friends to play with.

In the long run-----

Aindrias Moynihan (Cork North West, Fianna Fail)
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A Theachta, very quickly please. Tá an t-am caite-----

Paul Murphy (Dublin South West, RISE)
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Sure.

Aindrias Moynihan (Cork North West, Fianna Fail)
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-----and we need to give the Taoiseach time to reply.

Paul Murphy (Dublin South West, RISE)
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In the long run, the answer is a public childcare system.

Aindrias Moynihan (Cork North West, Fianna Fail)
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We need to give the Taoiseach an opportunity to answer.

Paul Murphy (Dublin South West, RISE)
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In the short term, can there be an intervention here in terms of either mediation with the GAA club to allow a reopening or the provision of an alternative location?

Aindrias Moynihan (Cork North West, Fianna Fail)
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I call Deputy Conway-Walsh for the final supplementary question.

Rose Conway-Walsh (Mayo, Sinn Fein)
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Go raibh maith agat. I wish to raise the lack of classes for autistic children in County Mayo. I have one case where a parent is looking for a school place for next year and she has been told it is not possible. This parent and other parents will be forced to take cases in the High Court to try to get places for their children. I ask the Taoiseach to please look at what is happening in County Mayo in respect of the unavailability of school places for autistic children for next year and to please have this issue fixed. It is shameful that this Government is ending and we are in a situation like this.

Aindrias Moynihan (Cork North West, Fianna Fail)
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Go raibh maith agat. The Taoiseach has a lot to answer i dtrí nóiméad.

Simon Harris (Wicklow, Fine Gael)
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I will do my best. Starting with the question from Deputy Conway-Walsh, I thank her for raising this issue concerning the lack of autism places in County Mayo. The Minister of State, Deputy Naughton, meets weekly with the National Council for Special Education and I will ask her to raise at the next meeting the specific issue of the situation in County Mayo and revert to Deputy Conway-Walsh directly.

Moving to Deputy Murphy and his query in relation to childcare places, I am sorry to hear about the situation with Krafty Kidz and St. Mary's GAA club in Saggart, and the very difficult impact it has had on people. I am sure this includes the children, who make friends and get used to going to places, etc. I wonder if this is something we could discuss with the county childcare committee. By the way, I too favour moving to a new model of childcare and I will talk lots about this in the weeks ahead. I think our model is overly reliant on private providers. There will always be a need for some private provision, but when we look at international comparisons, we can see that our system is overly reliant on private provision rather than public provision. Perhaps this is a matter for another day. I will follow up on this issue with the county childcare committee.

Regarding Deputy Boyd Barrett's question, there is validity to his point. To give the truth again, there has been no recruitment freeze in relation to the CDNTs. In fact, when there was the embargo on recruitment or the recruitment pause - call it what you wish - CDNTs were exempt from it. Recruitment campaigns were run. The Deputy's figures, though, are right. It has been extremely hard to attract and recruit people into the sector at a time of full employment. We have seen numbers in the sector grow somewhat. I do not have the figures to hand, but I will send them to the Deputy. He is highlighting the scale of the challenge we face in trying to fully staff the CDNTs. I can tell the Deputy that we have the money to start more of them, but the challenge in recruitment belies that reality. I will ask that a specific look is taken at that CDNT and I will come back to the Deputy with a note on what I think can happen in recruitment in the months ahead.

I acknowledge Deputy Durkan's advocacy of the voice of the child in general, but specifically the voice of the child in family law cases and our courts system. The Deputy and the Minister, Deputy McEntee, have had many detailed discussions in this regard. The Minister has brought forward several proposals concerning this matter, including reform of the family law courts. She has also published an overview that she did of international comparisons and best practices. I believe this paves the way forward. We will keep in touch with the Deputy on this matter.

On Deputy Ó Murchú's question, I think he is right. It is too easy to hammer the schools and he is right to suggest we should not. What we need to do is to have a better way of looking at how we can bring schools together with communities to plan ahead in terms of the need for autism classes. I believe schools have an obligation to do more, absolutely, but we also have an obligation to listen to them in terms of what they need. It is often quite practical things. The D15 task force that has been established is having its first meeting today. This could very much be a model that could be rolled out right across the country, should it work, in respect of how we can bring people around the table and try to forward plan. I say this because when I talk to the parents of kids with special needs, I find there is a sense of anxiety that everything is always last minute. They might get a place but it would be at the last minute. We can do that better. If the Deputy wants to send me the details of the particular case he endeavoured to raise, I will be happy to follow up on it for him.

Turning to the question from Deputy Tóibín on the issue of childcare, he is right. I accept it is not just an issue of fees; there is also an issue of access and the model we want to build. I will point out that while it is true that some preschool services have closed, it is also true that some preschool services have opened. The numbers available to me show there has been an overall increase of 161 in the number of services in the sector this year. We have also made some changes in relation to the issue of the freeze and trying to respond to some of the issues raised by the sector. Maybe I can send the Deputy a note on this issue. Go raibh maith agat.