Denis Naughten (Roscommon-Galway, Independent) | Oireachtas source

This is Ireland’s first Neurodiversity Celebration Week. Its purpose is to celebrate and raise awareness of the different ways those who are neurodiverse experience and interact with the world around them. Neurodiverse conditions include autism, attention deficit hyperactivity disorder, ADHD, dyslexia and dyspraxia, to name just a few. With the growing waiting list to access supports, we are clearly not doing enough to support those who are neurodiverse. In Roscommon and Galway there are more than 500 children waiting for physiotherapy appointments. In January, more than 1,000 children across the two counties were awaiting initial speech and language therapy assessments and nearly 500 waiting occupational therapy assessments. This is simply not good enough. We have to do better. Parents are being left with no option but to seek services privately, if they are lucky enough to have the have the resources to do so or to be able to source them. What about families who cannot access such interventions? They are at the mercy of ever-growing waiting lists.

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