Mick Wallace (Wexford, Independent) | Oireachtas source

Time is short and I will use mine to read a story, an extract from an article in the Donegal News. It reads:

Alison and John's daughter Taylor … was diagnosed as being profoundly deaf when she was 19 months old.

Alison said: "We were referred to Beaumont Hospital which runs the National Cochlear Implant Programme. After months of tests and appointments she was finally accepted onto the programme and was fitted with a Cochlear implant on November 1, 2012.

"After three weeks of healing we returned to Beaumont for the implant to be 'switched on' which would allow her to hear for the first time.

"This was an extremely emotional day for us as we realised our baby had never heard us tell how much we love her up until this point."

The couple said they were told they had to start from the very beginning as their daughter was behind in terms of speech development due to her hearing condition.

"It has been just under three months since Taylor joined us in this hearing world and the changes in her have been amazing.

"She has started to babble 'Mama' and 'Baba', the way any young baby would start off - these being words we thought we may never hear. She is also turning whenever we call her name, truly a miracle," said Alison.

"As Taylor only has an implant on one side, [however,] her brain is so exhausted in the evenings as it's being overworked trying to take in all this information through one ear."

[A] second implant would allow little Taylor to progress at a much faster pace and more chance of being on level par with her peers at school ...

Taylor has already started behind and her effort to catch up will be very challenging, too challenging, without a second implant. It is not fair.

See this speech in context