Mark Ward (Dublin Mid West, Sinn Fein) | Oireachtas source

I thank the witnesses for their feedback. One of those heart-breaking things we all do as public representatives is sending back responses from the HSE to say that a person's child is going to be waiting for four years for early intervention, or speech and language, or occupational therapy. Dr. O'Dwyer mentioned standardising the services across the areas but there are discrepancies even within CHO areas. For example in my area, CHO 7, these new children's disability network teams are set up in CHO 7, there are eight of them as far as I know. Two have not had a manager appointed yet. Both of them are in my area, one in Rossecourt and one in Clondalkin. So even within CHO areas, there are discrepancies. For example, in other parts of my constituency a child may get a service quicker in the Palmerstown area but in north Clondalkin or Lucan or other parts of Clondalkin it is not the same service. That is something we need to work on and I wanted to make that point. Also, primary care centres are meant to underpin and have the structures in place to provide these services. Dublin Mid-West is a huge constituency without even one primary care centre at the moment. That is what we are up against.