Niamh Smyth (Cavan-Monaghan, Fianna Fail) | Oireachtas source

First, I draw the Minister of State's attention to the crazy situation in which parents in Cavan-Monaghan find themselves when it comes to the assessment of need, which has been spoken about in the debate. Parents of children with special needs are being told that they will have to wait up to three years for the assessment of need and perhaps just as long again for such specialised interventions as occupational therapy and speech and language therapist. As the Minister of State will be aware, early intervention is key and critical to the success of any child facing a physical or intellectual disability, and the figures for Cavan and Monaghan are staggering and appalling in this day and age. In the community health care organisation, CHO, area 1, which includes Cavan-Monaghan, Donegal, Sligo and Leitrim, the total number of children awaiting their first assessment of need is 178. What is very concerning for both me and parents living in the constituency is that Cavan and Monaghan have the highest waiting list of the three areas in the CHO, accounting for 128 of the total of 178 children. There is clearly something fundamentally crippling in the system that parents in my constituency and their children are suffering such exasperating and detrimental waiting times.

The Minister of State has been to visit the Holy Family School, in Cootehill, in County Cavan, which caters for pupils with severe and profound learning disabilities and pupils with autism. There are almost 200 such children attending the Holy Family School. Their daily challenge, and that of their parents, is to fight for their basic and human right, that is, access to services such as occupational therapy, the need for which we have seen a significant surge in recent times. Parents of children attending the Holy Family School, which I am using as an example, have resorted to fundraising to have a visiting occupational therapist come to the school because they have given up hope of ever having that intervention or appointment through the public system.

This must be a breach of their children's fundamental rights and it is inexcusable.

This is World Autism Awareness Week. I know from his visit to Cavan-Monaghan that the Minister of State's heart is in the right place, but I implore him to please put people with disabilities, both children and adults, and equal opportunities for them front and centre of Government.

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