Mary Butler (Waterford, Fianna Fail) | Oireachtas source

My colleague, the Minister of State, Deputy Rabbitte, has put enormous work and energy into reducing the number of children who are overdue assessments of need. Nationally, 6,558 assessments of need were overdue in June 2020 under the old process. At the end of October 2021, through a combination of different measures, approximately 6,100 children had their assessments completed, reducing the backlog to 460 cases. That is a reduction of 93%, and by anyone's metric that is some reduction in the number of children who require and deserve their assessments of need to be done in a timely manner. This has led to children being put on further waiting lists, and the Minister of State, Deputy Rabbitte is working hard to get those therapies in place.

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