Mr. Dharragh Hunt:

I thank the Deputy for the question. We reviewed the operation of the assessment of need and published a report in 2011. In that report we pointed out that the core problem was the lack of consensus around what constituted an appropriate assessment under the Act. Obviously work has been done since then and the HSE developed the standard operating procedure, SOP. However, the core problem still remains that there is a lack of consensus around what is actually required under the Act. We have called for the relevant section of the Act to be reviewed because fundamentally the issue is that there is no agreement across and between stakeholders as to what constitutes an appropriate assessment under the Act. The Act was also written before the UN Convention. The convention does not talk about giving people the right to a diagnosis but about giving them the right to early intervention and early access to services and that is where the focus should be.

Since our report in 2011 a lot of time has passed and a lot of children have gone through the system. It seems that what is there is not working for anybody but particularly for children and their families. That is why we called for it to be reviewed. At the time it made sense and we wrote to both Ministers when the review of the Education for Persons with Special Educational Needs Act was announced. These two Acts are intertwined. Clearly there are issues with Part 2 of the Disability Act so it made sense that they be reviewed together. Indeed, it is problematic that they are not being reviewed together and we made that point to both Ministers at the time.

On the question as to whether the assessment of need is impacted by the number of therapists in the system, the answer is "Yes, absolutely". The Deputy asked if there is any quick solution to that on the horizon but I do not see one. I know the relevant Departments are looking at how they can ramp up capacity but that is not going to be turned around in the short term, or at least not that we can see.