Councillors slam ‘diabolical’ service as Carlow children with disabilities left without support

CARLOW Municipal District councillors are highly critical of the Children’s Disability Network Team operating in the area.

The MD’s monthly meeting heard from mayor of Carlow cllr Fintan Phelan that it is “critical” in terms of children with disabilities that they have the supports they need.

Minister of state Anne Rabbitte had responded in a letter to the concerns that councillors had expressed about services for children with disabilities.

The mayor continued: “Their supports are not happening at anywhere near the level they need to be. Children are missing out on huge developmental attention because they are not getting their assessments early enough, and even if they are getting an assessment publicly or privately, they are not getting the supports that they need, be it speech and language therapy, psychotherapy and wraparound services.

“It’s simply not good enough. I think as an MD and as a council we need to be very strong on the fact that the CDNT is simply not working.” Cllr Fergal Browne pointed out that the big difficulty with the supports offered is that the “services have been split” and the CDNT is ignored, with the knock-on effects being huge. “As a principal of a primary school, I see it with children with disabilities and the system is diabolical.” People Before Profit councillor Adrienne Wallace agreed with cllr Browne’s remarks and added: “This is galling and will have a knock-on effect for the rest of their lives. This is one of the biggest crises facing families. The situation is very bad in Carlow.” Cllr Andrea Dalton highlighted that there are ten vacancies on the CDNT. “The problem is the lack of people, not funding or positions such as two speech and language therapists and occupational therapists. Think of all the interventions for children at the very early stages. Children miss out. I don’t know what the solutions are. Carlow is really suffering and we need to shout louder to fill these positions.” The mayor called for more details about the CDNT in Carlow. Cllr Phelan said a number of letters had been sent to several governmental departments about how the CDNT was not operating properly in Carlow.

Cllr John Cassin said the situation was “not being helped coming on the back of the HSE recruitment scheme. There needs to be bodies in these jobs. We need to be curious as to why there is a barrier to people coming to work in Carlow”.