Seán Crowe (Dublin South West, Sinn Fein) | Oireachtas source

On the same issue, speech and language therapy, we are talking about the importance of early intervention. I am dealing with a number of cases in my constituency of Dublin South-West. There are 95 others ahead of a child in one such case. The child has been waiting two years and has now been told it will be another year. The HSE in Dublin South-West asked for extra resources in the budget but the budget did not cover that request. We are talking about three years for a basic thing like speech and language therapy. The Taoiseach spoke earlier about the UN Convention on the Rights of Persons with Disabilities. That is fantastic but here we have the most vulnerable and they are not getting access to services. They are having to wait three years. The Minister for Education and Skills is here. Is there any possibility of extra budget resources for this? Clearly the system is broken in this area and we need to do more in this regard.

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