Joan Collins (Dublin South Central, Independents 4 Change) | Oireachtas source

I welcome all the families and campaigners who are in the Gallery today. It is a shame they have to come in here again after all their years of campaigning. However, there is a need for their presence. I see the Minister of State is nodding. I hope this will spur her on to push for action moreso than long-term strategies.

We know what we need. We must fill the children's disability network teams, CDNTs. This was supposed to be the new and positive step forward in moving children out of individual community healthcare organisations, CHOs, such as CHO 7 and all the other areas. The CDNTs were going to solve all the problems in this regard, but we have seen what has happened, with more than 10,000 families having not received assessments. There are vacancies all over the place and families cannot access the resources they need. This is the crux of the issue. Equally, my feedback from families is that those who assess the CDNTs find it is all paperwork. It is not a case of a therapist sitting down with the families and assessing the needs of the child.

The report of the Ombudsman for Children is a dire assessment of where we are when we consider that the National Council for Special Education, NCSE, was set up in 2003, which is now nearly 20 years ago, to support the educational needs of children with disabilities and autism. According to the report of the ombudsman, Dr. Muldoon, the Department of Education is failing children with special needs who do not have school places for next September. More than 100 children still do not have placements and other families are still chasing placements outside their local areas. The report states:

For children who live in provision 'black spots', most notably Dublin and Cork, the system can fail in its response. That such failings occur is not acceptable.

I agree 100% with that. It is just not acceptable. The report estimates that as many as 15,500 children have to travel outside their local school catchment area every day to access school places. The pressure this puts on families is unbelievable, on top of not having the resources they need.

Meanwhile, nearly 1,500 students are receiving home tuition, which the report recommends should only be used temporarily as a last resort. Dr. Muldoon also stated in the report "that approximately 4,000 children were awaiting a diagnostic assessment in order to qualify for a school place" initially. These children must be given "access to a psychologist via the ... [State services] to establish whether [they need] a special class ... [or] school place" in the short term. The report also raised the concern that too much onus is being placed on the shoulders of parents to get the system to respond to their children's needs. The ombudsman also stated the "decentralised nature of our education system" means it is largely up to individual schools to decide whether they will provide school places for children with special needs. Additionally, the ombudsman stated there must be a recalibration of the balance between "Government oversight of education and schools’ autonomy".

Twenty years on, this is a bad indictment of where we are now and of the situation that families and children are facing. On top of that report, we had the reply to the question posed by Deputy Cullinane, the spokesperson on health for Sinn Féin. The HSE said there are significant challenges in this regard. Out of just over 2,000 roles, some 732 posts were for professionals to provide services for children with disabilities. Many of those posts in the HSE are vacant. The response continued by stating, according to the HSE, that vacant posts equate to 480,000 hours not being provided to children on the waiting list for services. These 480,000 hours reflect the reality of the situation. The unfilled posts are across the HSE and other organisations funded by the State. This includes the NCSE, which stated yesterday it has vacancies in its speech and language therapist, roles and disability management posts. Some 52,000 children are waiting for initial assessment and therapy. The biggest part of waiting list for services is for speech and language therapy, with more than 30,000 children waiting. Nearly 8,000 are waiting for physiotherapy, while more than 13,000 are waiting for occupational therapy. There are 9,500 children on waiting lists for further speech and language therapy appointments.

Last Monday week, the Dublin 12 campaign for autism units organised an event where parents were invited to meet their local Deputies and explain exactly where they stood. It was devastating to listen to the stories, as the Minister of State knows, because she has heard them before. This has to stop. There must stop being a need for these families to have to continually meet councillors, Deputies, Ministers and Ministers of State to explain their situations when they have done that time and again. About eight to ten families were present at that meeting, but I did not get to speak to all of them. The main issues, however, concerned a lack of access to the assessment of need, AON, process, as well as to speech and language therapy, physiotherapy and occupational therapy services. Many of those families had been waiting for four or five years for those services. What really struck me was the number of parents who had to go private for the AON and the other therapies, such as speech and language, as well as for assessment for education to get children into school.

I am not saying we should stop speaking about it, because we must speak about this situation, shout about it and provide a voice for those families affected by this situation, but it is now up to the Minister of State and her Department to get the finger out. I heard the Minister for Further and Higher Education, Research, Innovation and Science, Deputy Harris, is creating more places for people to study to qualify as therapists. We must, though, think outside the box here. I say that because what we are finding is that while therapists are coming into services, they are then leaving quickly. They are going to private providers because better pay and resources are available. We must try to think outside the box in addressing this issue. Why are we not saying the State will encourage young people to go to college to study for these roles and pay for their courses if those students commit to staying in the HSE's services for at least eight to ten years? If people might wish to pay for their own course, that would be their own initiative. We must find a way that will enable us to keep these therapists, including nurses etc., in the services they are entering.

I support this Bill. The Government is wrong not to support it or to take its provisions on board and work with the Labour Party on it because this would give legislative rights to families and children. A strategy is not as strong as legislation. I ask the Minister of State for her opinion in this regard and why she is not considering this Bill as an important part of addressing the services being provided to children and parents. I ask that based on other countries having done this. It is not a pie-in-the-sky approach.

My last point concerns Kerina Cullen-Tuite, who said, during a report by RTÉ on the report of the ombudsman, that in the five years since her son Paddy was diagnosed, he had received 18 hours of therapy, of which 12 were for speech and language and six for occupational therapy. The report she got on the AON stated her son needed psychological and educational assessments. She has had none of those. Ms Cullen-Tuite said her son, along with all the other children, is not reaching his full potential.

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