Dr. Niall Muldoon:

I appreciate the Deputy's kind words about the report. We have not yet sat down with the Government. The report came out in October and we decided to wait and see where disability was going to sit. I have a letter for the Department and I hope soon to have a meeting the Minister of State, Deputy Rabbitte.

I met the Minister for Health, Deputy Donnelly, prior to the report going out and I flagged it with him. They are certainly happy to engage with me but I have not set up a meeting to do that yet, because I was not sure whether it was the Minister for Health or the Minister for Children, Equality, Disability, Integration and Youth that I would need to engage with. I hope we will try to do that before the end of this year, and that we can sit down and thrash out what can be done from here.

The four case studies are there but the latest figures we have, which were reported in a Sunday newspaper, is that more than 6,000 children are waiting for an assessment of needs, so any one of those could have a story like this. It is heartbreaking to see it consistently. I have been in office for five years and I was working as director of investigations before that so I am aware of this being a situation for the past eight years. There is a lack of progress and a lack of planning to get the resources in place to allow the assessment of needs to go ahead so that, in turn, children get the services. There is no point in giving platitudes to parents to say how brilliant they are doing. We need to make it as easy as possible. It is such a tough job looking after a child who has additional needs. It should be made as smooth as possible to get all the services that are needed. One parent described herself as a psycho parent. In order to get anything, one has to scream loud and consistently and that is not the way we should set up our system and society. It is a really difficult one.

As regards the standard operational procedure, my colleague outlined the new process. There are question marks over whether it will provide what we want it to provide in terms of the 90-minute assessment. I worked previously as a psychologist and I am aware of what was involved in the previous level of assessment of needs. It could take up to three months to do it, with three or four professionals involved. One might see a child for the first day and he or she might just run around and it is very difficult to make a call for the first half an hour or hour and then when one meets the child the following week, he or she might trust one a little bit more. One builds up a rapport and one can see what the child is doing. One might go to visit the child in school. It takes time to get a sense of where a child is at. It is unusual and difficult to do it in 90 minutes.

I will hold judgment on what happens because I am very aware that there is supposed to be a review of the standard operational procedure within the first 12 months. I look forward to seeing what the health and social care professionals will say about this. I know there has been some disquiet, but we will have to see if it works and if we get 6,000 children off the waiting list with a proper assessment of need that outlines the services they require. One of the points made by the Department two years ago when it was expecting to move in this direction, is that the preliminary assessment would provide a gateway for children who did not need a full assessment of needs to get into other services to have their needs met. As long as we see that sort of diversion, that will be progress, but I am concerned that some professionals might decide they cannot make a decision in 90 minutes and then all we are doing is kicking the can down the road. It is something I have heard concerns about but I will not make a call on whether it is good or bad yet. I will hand over to my colleague, Ms. McAuley, who will speak about the extra powers and any concerns we might have in that regard.