Oireachtas Joint and Select Committees

Tuesday, 2 March 2021

Joint Oireachtas Committee on Children and Youth Affairs

Children's Unmet Needs: Engagement with Health Service Executive

Photo of Seán SherlockSeán Sherlock (Cork East, Labour) | Oireachtas source

Parliamentary questions are the limited power Deputies have in respect of getting answers. To be fair to the HSE, I always receive comprehensive replies to my questions. I submitted a parliamentary question in September 2020, which sought the numbers on the initial assessment nationally. The figure that came back was 13,273. I tabled the same question in December and the same cohort had risen to 16,466. That is a 24% increase on the numbers nationally waiting for initial assessment. The HSE has mapped in €7.8 million but in real terms, the waiting lists are increasing. That is fact; it is based on the HSE's own figures. In CHO 4, covering Kerry and Cork, the number of children awaiting initial assessment rose from 930 in September to 1,436 in December. I tabled two questions, one in September and one in December. The numbers in CHO 4 indicate 242 additional people are awaiting assessment. Nationally, the number waiting for an initial intervention has increased by 7%. Even if Dr. Morgan is talking about changes to community teams – we take what he is saying in good faith – in real time, the real figures show there is still an exponential increase in the waiting lists. Notwithstanding the amount of money that has been mapped onto this and the entirety of the budget, the figures show me that it is still difficult to keep pace with demand. That is something that must be addressed.

I am sure I am out of time but I will make a final point and Dr. Morgan can come back to me later. I wish to raise the issue of deaf schools, in particular the fact that site-specialised speech and language therapy services are being taken away from deaf schools at present. That is wrong and it needs to be revised. They are people who always had a service within those schools and it seems now that it is being excised out of the system by the centralisation of services under the progressing disability services strategy. I ask that the decision would please be revised, in particular as it relates to deaf schools throughout the country.

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