Gino Kenny (Dublin Mid West, People Before Profit Alliance) | Oireachtas source

I commend Sinn Féin on this very important motion. We have debated for a considerable amount of time over the period I have been in this House the issue of disability services for children. From my point of view and that of my colleagues, we have always tried to be constructive rather than destructive and tried not to make politics of it. It is sometimes difficult not to make politics of issues but, on this issue, we try to be as constructive as possible.

This issue goes back a considerable amount of time. As with many other issues, there are legacy issues in regard to how we treat children and how we treat public health in this country. What we are talking about is children being denied very basic services and very basic civil rights, in my opinion and, I believe, in everybody else's opinion. Once those services are denied, a child's development can be greatly affected in regard to life expectancy and so forth.

What we had in the past 17 years was a quite incredible situation where the Government was breaching its own laws around the Disability Act.

It got more absurd when families trying to access these services had to go to the High Court. Two hundred families went through that process to access basic services. That situation got even more absurd when a High Court judge a couple of weeks ago said the standard operating procedure was not compatible with the Disability Act and the Government is basically breaking its own law. Families have to go before the judge in the High Court to say they are not getting the services they need. It is a ludicrous situation. Will the Minister review the Disability Act 2005? It was passed 17 years ago and was, in its essence, a good Act. It gave a timeframe of six months within which families could get an assessment of needs. We would all say that if people could get those services, we would be doing well. The reality is so different.

As I have said many times, when somebody comes into my office and the first thing they say is about assessment of needs, my head drops to the ground because I know how useless I am in that situation. That family is going through this mechanism and has to wait years. If families are coming to Deputies, then the system is completely flawed. They should never be coming near Deputies. They should be coming through the HSE early intervention team and using the procedures in place to get those services. Families and children are denied and left to their own devices. They sometimes have to go private, which is expensive. Even if they go private now, there are huge waiting lists. The situation is as grave as it can get, and is coupled with the situation in relation to the Disability Act. In real life, families have to wait up to three and a half or four years for basic services, such as speech and language therapy or occupational therapy. You would want to have a heart of stone when somebody says their child who is four will be seven and a half before they get the services. This is a wealthy country. It is not poor by any means and should have the provision to treat children in a civil way. Will the Minister review the Disability Act because, by my reckoning, it is not fit for purpose?

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