Stephen Donnelly (Wicklow, Fianna Fail) | Oireachtas source

I thank Ms Carr. I wanted to raise this again because that is the reality. We can have all the plans, the work and the decent gestures we want, but if the reality is that we have a quadriplegic man, fully capable of going back to work and fully capable of leading quite an independent life with the right supports, who was discharged almost a year ago from the NRH, then something is badly broken in terms our spectrum of care for people with disabilities.

I have a similar question for the Department of Education and Skills on assessment. There has been a lot of talk about the need for assessment and the need for transition. Certainly in Wicklow, and I imagine in most if not in every other constituency, one of the most frustrating conversations one has as a Deputy when canvassing is to meet the parents of children with disabilities who are waiting for years for assessment.

I am not even talking about getting the supports; I mean for assessment. I met a mother whose daughter has serious spinal issues who has been waiting a year for an assessment for a wheelchair because the curvature of the wheelchair that she has is wrong. She is in pain and cannot use the wheelchair. She sits on the ground for most of the time. She is not waiting a year for a wheelchair; she is waiting a year for someone to assess the wheelchair requirement. In the meantime the HSE will not fix wheelchairs and throws them into a big skip.

I talk to parents who are waiting literally years for speech and language assessment for their children. We all know that early assessment is incredibly invaluable. How is that happening? Is anything being done to get the assessments and the supports in place for young children with various disabilities, be they physical, learning or intellectual disability. It seems that things are moving in the wrong direction and that this is a profoundly stupid, dangerous, damaging and unnecessary thing for us a State to be doing.