David Cullinane (Waterford, Sinn Fein) | Oireachtas source

I am sorry, but the witnesses are missing the point. I am infuriated with the responses that I have received through parliamentary questions on these issues. I will cite further examples of where the HSE was in breach of the law. The HSE needs to understand that we are discussing children with disabilities and a breach in the law, given that there is a legal requirement on it to provide this report. The logic behind the report is that it is meant to present the aggregate needs of all of these children following their assessments in order to allow the HSE to plan. It talks about this in the Act. Read the Act.

It states it allows the Minister of the day to plan what is needed. I got a reply to a parliamentary question that indicates something different. It stated that one of the issues leading to the reports not being published or sent to the Minister was the use of an outdated database. I will read the paragraph:

One of the issues for the HSE which has caused delays in the publication of the statutory 13 annual reports lies in the outdated database we are currently using to facilitate the case management, planning and reporting of assessments and services to children with a disability, called the AOS. The AOS was developed by a small software company which no longer provides maintenance or technical support for the system. The database is 20 years old and has not had the necessary upgrades or technical changes in recent years that are generally required for IT systems to reflect changes in policy, operational practice and user requirements. This has created many challenges for both disability services nationally and for system users locally.

We are talking here about a database that records the data on assessments for children to allow the HSE to plan and inform the Minister. It is operating at 20-year-old database which is clearly out of date and not working. It is clearly in breach of the law. I do not believe that those taking part in this meeting understand that an Act places a statutory legal obligation on the HSE and it is in breach of the law.