Anne Rabbitte (Galway East, Fianna Fail) | Oireachtas source

The Deputy asked many questions and I was very slow at writing them down. I will start at the end. He asked me if the money will go into a black hole if it is not used. It will be used because every one of those 6,500 children is going to get their assessment of need. This money is going to be used. That is why I am holding monthly meetings and that is why I can tell Deputy Sherlock what has happened in his CHO in the past three months. I can tell every member what is going on in his or her CHO because my finger is on the pulse as regards assessments. The money will be spent in a timely fashion and it will be delivered, so we will clear the backlog.

The Deputy's first question is well-put. He asked why we need a standard operating procedure if the backlog is being cleared. I said at the beginning that this is a nut we need to crack.

I want to get to the intervention element. By spending as much time as we have been in simply addressing backlogs, we would not deliver on intervention. For the information of some members who may not be aware of this, when one get an assessment of needs and, say, it relates to speech and language therapy, one has to go a speech and language therapist to get an assessment. One then gets a first round of therapy and that could continue for six weeks and if one needs further follow-up one is directed to a list of speech and language therapists further up the line. I am trying to get to the intervention piece. That was the reason I sought funding to clear the backlog so that everybody concerned could get to the space where we are discussing intervention.

Regarding 92% of the cases being upheld, they were being upheld because they were not being dealt within a timely fashion. We all know this. The Act clearly stipulates one has a right to an assessment within six months. If one does not get it, the law will uphold that right. That is enshrined in law since 2005.

It is important to realise that 100 therapist posts were sought under the confidence and supply agreement in last year's budget. Some of those therapists who came on stream never hit the network disability teams because they went straight into contact tracing and swabbing. They are only starting to come back to this work now. I have also sought another 100 therapist posts in this budget. If I am fortunate enough, and with the support of the Minister, Deputy Donnelly, I would like us to block book the funding for those posts whereby we would recruit the therapists in one block. I would like that to happen in quarter 1 rather than over quarters 1, 2 and 3 and in that way, we could populate our network disability teams and the intervention could continue at an accelerated rate.