Claire Kerrane (Roscommon-Galway, Sinn Fein) | Oireachtas source

I too commend my colleague Deputy Tully on the work she has done in bringing forward this motion. For a parent with a child who has additional needs, the battle for services and supports is constant. A parent may notice something when the child is only two or three years of age: their balance, their eye contact or their inability to do things children of the same age can do. That is just the start of a very long road. Parents may know very little about the world they are about to enter when seeking an assessment for a child with a view to seeking a diagnosis and ensuring they get the child the help he or she needs. Some parents cobble together the money to go private. Some get into debt just to get that initial assessment and then realise the child has just been moved onto another waiting list. Without that initial assessment, parents will struggle to qualify for the domiciliary care allowance. They will not have enough medical evidence because they cannot get the assessment so they cannot get that really important income support. The child starts school, has not been assessed and requires additional supports and they cannot get an SNA. Everything is a battle, as has been said, from assessments to therapies to day services to respite. It should not be a battle. Why is it that, rather than fix the issue, that is, the delays and the waiting lists, the Government chooses to create something to make it look like it has done something when instead it misleads people and makes the situation worse? As has been said, the Government has created what can only be described as a screening exercise, a pre-assessment to the assessment of needs, to cover up the failure to meet the obligation it should meet, as set out in the Disability Act. It is of no benefit to the child or to his or her parents. The child is no further on after it and instead moves onto another waiting list. It is now common knowledge that you have to go to court in order to get your child the services he or she needs.

In my constituency there are hundreds of children on waiting lists across speech and language therapy, occupational therapy and physiotherapy. One mother in my constituency has a son aged 17. He has autism. She has fought and fought his entire life. She is and always has been his voice. She told me that a neighbour approached her the other day. The neighbour is concerned about her own child. The mother said she felt sick having to tell the young mother what she has to face into and the road she has ahead. There is almost a fear of entering the system in the first place.

The solutions have been brought forward. They are in this motion. I ask the Minister of State to fix the actual issue and to fix it now.

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