Margaret Murphy O'Mahony (Cork South West, Fianna Fail) | Oireachtas source

I welcome the witnesses, in particular Ms O'Neill, who is from my home town. We went to school at the same time. I extend a special welcome to her and Dr. Morgan. I apologise as I must leave shortly as there is a group from west Cork that needs to be shown around etc. I will read the answers to colleagues' questions as well.

The current system of assessment of needs is not working. Everybody's heart is in the right place but there is clearly something wrong when more than 4,000 children are waiting for assessment, with three quarters of them waiting longer than three months. People from Cork and Kerry seem to wait longer for the AON and then for therapies indicated by the assessment. The population is high in Cork but even taking that into account, there seems to be a big problem there.

Why was there no consultation with the professional bodies who will be involved with the SOP before any plan was made? Why did the service not consult parents? The witnesses did not have an opportunity to listen to our previous session. Maybe it is a lesson for us but in hindsight we could have had all the groups in together to facilitate interaction between us all. It is too late for today but it could be an idea for the future.

This seems to be an administrative solution to a waiting list problem. I cannot see how this will in any way help the AON problem. Dr. Morgan indicates this is proposed to be a standardised system. If that is the case, surely the reconfiguration should be done throughout all the CHOs rather than two from nine.