Peadar Tóibín (Meath West, Aontú) | Oireachtas source

It is shocking to say that in 2022 Ireland is still not a place of equality for people with disabilities. There is an ocean of window dressing in this State when it comes to inclusivity but the truth is that hundreds of thousands of citizens are excluded from life in this country daily. Given the assessment waiting lists, lack of access to services and transport, and young people trapped in nursing homes, Ireland is a cold house for people with disabilities. I believe the Government is failing in its obligations towards people in this country.

In recent weeks, the inequality in access to public and private transport has been exposed and the abandonment of children with Down's syndrome by the HSE has been detailed extensively. The mere 4,000 children on the waiting list for an assessment of needs has been indicated as well. I raised just last week the case of Kifca McNamee, a woman in her 40s with a disability who has been trapped in a nursing home since long before Christmas and who simply cannot get a home care package that would allow her to get out. I raised this with Minister of State, Deputy Rabbitte in addition to Minister of State, Deputy Butler. I hope a solution can be achieved in this case.

Disability rights is a key objective of Aontú. My party colleague, Cavan councillor Sarah O'Reilly, has been highlighting the crisis of waiting lists for an autism assessment locally and nationally. The current waiting time for an autism assessment is two to three years. Therefore, if you have a child of three in need of an assessment for autism, you must wait for another three years for a diagnosis. This immediately puts your family at a disadvantage. A six-year-old child is on the back foot in looking for a school enrolment and the services that come with it. Many families, by the time their child is assessed, miss the boat for enrolling him or her in an ASD unit. Places in these schools are at a premium. Places are limited and fill up fast. Many families have to go down the route of private assessment for a child under the age of three, at a cost of €1,500. For a child over three, the cost is €950. It is safe to say that parents who can afford the private assessment have access to services sooner and therefore obtain better outcomes for their children. It shows there is a two-tier system in the country when it comes to children with disabilities.

In my county, County Meath, there are several schools with classes for children with autism, yet such classes do not exist in secondary school. Therefore, affected children have to go beyond the town of Trim to gain access to a school. I know of twins who were affected. One of them, who has autism, had to travel to a different town while his brother could go to the closest town, Trim.

My party colleague in Louth, Mr. Michael O'Dowd, raised the damning figures in the recent Down Syndrome Ireland, DSI, report on access to therapy services. Some 65% of those surveyed by DSI have received no speech and language therapy sessions in the past year. Forty-four percent have received no therapy of any kind in the past year. Parents have responded that no therapy sessions were received in over three years. Forty percent said they had received no communication of any kind from the HSE in the past 12 months. Nearly 25% of children with Down's syndrome under the age of five had received no therapy services. Of young children, only 49% had been to a speech and language therapist, while merely 22% had access to an occupational therapist. Upon entering school, 54% of children had not received any therapies in the preceding year, and 39% had never received therapies at all. This is abandonment. This is leaving children and young people with Down's syndrome behind in the State.

I spoke to a party colleague in Cork, Ms Joanne Murphy, a mother of a child with autism. She raised with me the tragic plight of people with disabilities in Ukraine. There are 2.7 million people with disabilities currently residing in that country, and there is genuine fear that many of them will simply be left behind at the mercy of Putin's army. War has already had a devastating effect on these people in the form of post-traumatic stress disorder, physical and psychological injuries and the complete destruction of their lives as they know them. We have a responsibility in this State to reach out as best we can to people with disabilities who are in major difficulty in Ukraine and to make sure we offer them shelter and protection.

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