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

This gives me an opportunity to welcome what Senator Fitzpatrick said, and I will tell her why. The committee members know me and my work on the children and youth affairs committee over the past four years, and members know exactly the sort of person I am. I am very open and transparency is very much part and parcel of the person I am. I would welcome the opportunity of laying before the committee every month the figures on the assessments of needs.

I would welcome also the opportunity to provide to the committee the figures monthly of everybody who is waiting for a clinician's appointment in the State and I commit to that. I gave the example earlier of the speech and language therapy figures, including those who are on their original assessment, those who are waiting in their first period of time on the waiting list, and those who are going on further. I will save members the bother of putting down parliamentary questions every single month. It takes time out of the Department and it takes time out of the HSE. I am doing it myself and I will share my information with the Chairman and the committee monthly.

I welcome the fact the committee has made this issue a priority in its first term and I want it to be kept front and centre. Every one of us knows that intervention has to be key to what we are doing. If we all work together, my office and I, along with the committee, the Department of Health and the HSE, and if we are all accountable to ensuring that children get a timely intervention, and if we work hard, then that is how we will get it done. I have no fear in sharing the information. It is not going to be locked in a vault. I am happy to publish it.