Kathleen Funchion (Carlow-Kilkenny, Sinn Fein) | Oireachtas source

I welcome the opportunity to speak on this motion. I also welcome the important step forward in ratifying the United Nations Convention on the Rights of Persons with Disabilities.

It is a step forward and that is really all we can say on it. While it is welcome, what we need to see in the disability sector is action. We need to see services being adequately resourced with both staff and funding so that they can meet demand. Everybody knows - it has been said by many - that parents who have a child who is waiting for an assessment of need for occupational therapy, early intervention or speech and language therapy have to battle and fight, and family members have to constantly battle and fight for supports that they should be entitled to as a right.

We need to see more autistic spectrum disorder, ASD, units in schools and a far more transparent and easier system in accessing a special needs assistant in the school. I refer to the hoops that parents have to jump through - I would say it is the same when one applies for certain payments, such as disability allowance, carer's allowance or domiciliary care allowance. I can never understand the need for some of the information they look for and then there is a wait of between 16 weeks to 18 weeks before one receives that payment.

Those are the issues we need to see addressed. If we are to take this issue seriously and we want to stand up and treat everybody equally we need to see far more funding and resourcing of places. Places being left without speech and language therapists for two to three years is completely unacceptable.

I want to mention a specific issue in my constituency, Carlow-Kilkenny, where there has been no overnight respite services since December 2015 for children with disabilities. This is disgraceful. It is coming up on three years. It is action, not words, that we need.

I am conscious of the time and I do not want to go over because I have two colleagues who want to speak. We are nowhere near the provision of equal rights for persons with disabilities. The ratification of the United Nations Convention on the Rights of Persons with Disabilities, UNCRPD, is welcome progress in improving conditions for people but we must ensure it is not a tokenistic gesture. I appeal to the Minister of State to look at the funding and resource issues.

Briefly, when persons with a disability go, at age 18, from children services into adult services, we need to make it far easier for them to access employment and third level education. Sometimes it feels like services are waiting until a person turns 18 to say he or she goes onto the adult waiting lists. We need to address those sorts of issues if we are to be serious about addressing issues of disabilities.

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