Mother of autistic boy praises Cork woman 'for having the courage to' confront Taoiseach
Home D In Tipperary Kelly John Mcelhinney Cahir, Co Picture: Edwina At Her
The mother of an autistic boy has described the disability worker who challenged Simon Harris on the campaign trail as a courageous voice for families and carers.
It comes as new data from the HSE again highlights the barriers facing vulnerable children in accessing vital care.
Edwina McElhinney, from Cahir in Tipperary, is familiar with the impact of staff shortages on her own son’s care and helped establish the Tipperary branch of Families Unite for Services and Support (FUSS). She also runs a messaging service for family representatives on all Children’s Disability Network Teams (CDNT) nationally.
“The obstacles are the same everywhere. Tipperary isn’t an outlier,” said Ms McElhinney. “You’re talking about issues with staff recruitment, staff retention, equipment, help for dietary needs.”
Neither of the two disability teams in South Tipperary have a dietitian, she added. “We’ve no physio. We’ve no psychologist in Clonmel and that is replicated right across the country, we’re not alone in that. There is exceptionally poor staffing levels,” she said.
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Her son is under the Clonmel team which only has a temporary speech and language therapist. There are approximately 615 children connected to this team.
“The staff that are there are doing their very best. We’ve great staff in Clonmel. They’re doing their best but there are just so many things in the mix,” she said. “Everyone is doing their best and trying to advocate, but we’re the ones living it, really.”
Overall, the HSE estimated an average vacancy rate of 36% on CDNTs.
Reading election manifestos, she found pledges to fund disability care “quite strong” and the Social Democrats pledge of a rights-based approach stood out.
“Fine Gael and Fianna Fáil had their manifestos, and we are living with the results of those promises (from previous elections),” she said. “It’s our children and our children’s futures that are being affected here.”
She welcomed funding increases in Budget 2025 but pointed out costs for equipment are rising so rapidly this may have little impact. The same applies to medication costs, she added.
On Friday, care worker Charlotte Fallon tackled Simon Harris in Kanturk about lack of action on pay for disability workers.
Ms McElhinney said: “For her to be dismissed so out of hand was crushing. I can’t imagine the courage that she needed to step up and say what she had to say.
“Fair play to her for having the courage to say it. After the union action, pay parity still hasn’t happened for them. They still haven’t been paid.
"All of these things factor into the shortages, how can they expect people to work for that pay in the environment they are working in?”
The situation facing families in Cork is also dire, as new data released by the HSE under the Freedom of Information Act reveals. Ten disability network teams in Cork had 6,283 open cases by October of this year, with between 84 and 120 new referrals received every month since January.
Parents should have an Individual Family Support Plan, which the HSE describes as “the cornerstone of family-centred practice”. However, the Cork data shows only 44% of families had such a plan in September.
Across the 10 teams, there were 222 staff working last month despite being allocated funding to support the equivalent of 288.43 jobs. Waiting lists varied each month this year, dropping to 582 children waiting in June from 771 in January, but reaching 687 by October.
The HSE nationally plans to redeploy therapists to special schools from the CDNTs, with a commitment to backfill those roles for community teams, but there are concerns this will leave further gaps in services.
The disability support group Cheshire Ireland has called for urgent action on pay. The organisation provides services to people with physical and neurological conditions in Glanmire, Killarney, Waterford city and other areas around the country.
It is one of the agencies working for the HSE under a pay arrangement called Section 39. However, their staff are paid less than HSE staff for doing the same work.
Unions threatened industrial action on this for October 2023 which was averted by a last-minute agreement with Government, which has not been honoured.
“Organisations like Cheshire Ireland are put in a vulnerable position by the Pay Parity issue, which makes it difficult for them to hire and retain employees,” a spokeswoman said. “This ongoing struggle has a direct, negative impact on the quality of life for the people we support and their families.”
She said of the pay deal “this needs to be settled now and a positive resolution agreed upon”. This week unions called for the deal to be honoured following a disappointing meeting with government representatives on Tuesday.
“While we remain available to engage, if the current impasse continues we will find ourselves facing an unnecessary dispute. We are urging the Taoiseach and Tánaiste to mandate the negotiators to return to the table immediately,” the statement from Siptu, Forsa and the INMO said.