Jennifer Carroll MacNeill (Dún Laoghaire, Fine Gael) | Oireachtas source

I thank the officials for coming in. Having listened to my colleagues' contributions and the answers to them, I am a little confused because this dialogue is far removed from the experience parents relate to me. As Members of the Oireachtas, we hear about every part of the public sector and all the public services. This area comes up again and again and is by far the most challenging because of its impact on young people.

There are so many different aspects to this. Let us consider, for example, the effect on a parent of an appointment being cancelled without proper notice being given to the parents. I am thinking of one of the parents who appeared before the committee a couple of weeks ago. When parents have an appointment they have to take their child out of school and prepare him or her psychologically. Then they turn up and are told they were supposed to get a text to say the appointment was cancelled. That has happened to a number of parents who have appeared before this committee. We can give the witnesses examples. It just is not okay. Can the witnesses imagine how difficult that is from the parents' perspective? Imagine the co-ordination of services from the parents' perspective. The witnesses have their jobs but I have parents who are trying to organise school buses to aftercare or weekend or overnight respite care. All this is very difficult to do and is done while managing their child and trying to communicate with CDNTs, from which parents do not get responses or engagement. From the parents' perspective, they do not care which arm of the State is dealing with these different things. They have one child with one set of difficulties that needs resolution and there is no proactive management of that. Not only is there no proactive management of it but sometimes it can be very difficult to get a response or the appointment is cancelled at the last minute. I am telling the witnesses, as a public representative dealing with all aspects of the public service, that this service is the least satisfactory because of its inefficiency, how it fails to respond to parents and the impact it has on children.

I heard the witnesses say an assessment of needs is not needed. That would be a huge relief to parents who have been told - universally in my experience, and other members agree - that an assessment is essential, which has created delays for them. It is interesting to have that clarity.

I will talk through this as if I were a parent. I have a concern about my child and take him to the GP. The GP says I may need to get an assessment for autism or it may be that the child needs speech and language therapy. Will the witnesses talk me through what can I expect? CDNT 3 is the team that covers my area and I have cases involving children who have been waiting for therapeutic services for three and four years. I ask the witnesses to talk to me about the waiting lists now that we are well into the post-Covid period. What is the timeline from the moment I identify a difficulty with my child to my child getting services on a regular basis? I noted what was said about recruitment being a challenge. How many therapists are needed? By exactly how many are the services short and exactly how many are in the pipeline for 2023 and 2024? I will break the questions into two. What is the timeline for me as a parent in CDNT 3's area reaching out to the team for the first time because I need help for my child?