Séamus Healy (Tipperary, Workers and Unemployed Action Group) | Oireachtas source

The Disability Act 2005 provides for the assessment of health and education needs of persons with disability and provides for services to meet those needs. Section 9(5) of the Act also provides that the executive shall cause an assessment of applicants to be commenced within three months of the date of receipt of the application. The background information and supporting documentation refers to the need for services to be provided early in life to ameliorate a disability. They set out the procedure for the application for the assessment of needs. It states that the Act provides that the assessments must be started within three months of the application and also provides that the HSE must complete the assessment within three months. That is a legal requirement of the HSE as set out in the Act. Unfortunately, that is not the situation that pertains in south Tipperary and the legal entitlement is being breached. Children are not being assessed within the three-month period. There are huge delays in the assessment of needs of children. The service is broken and we need an immediate solution. The current situation for children in terms of the assessment of needs in south Tipperary is totally unacceptable.

A considerable number of parents have contacted me on the matter. I will give some indication of the difficulties and delays that arise. A parent whose child was due to start an assessment on 19 January was told recently the assessment would not commence until April 2019, in two years' time. That is simply not good enough. The child is now over three years of age and will be more than five years old in two years' time. As we all know, early intervention is crucial to ensure children with disabilities are properly looked after and have services provided to them.

Where an assessment of needs has not been completed, there are consequent delays in the provision of other services, for example, resource teaching, special needs assistants, speech therapy and a range of services children with special needs require to ameliorate their position. I urge the Minister of State to take steps to ensure the situation in south Tipperary is addressed and that additional staff are made available to the service there as a priority to ensure the legal entitlement of children to an assessment within a three-month period is fulfilled.

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