Alan Farrell (Dublin Fingal, Fine Gael) | Oireachtas source

Last year, 800 children in my constituency and just around it were awaiting access to children's disability services, and this year the number is 1,200. With the best will in the world, the policy that we have implemented cannot achieve its outcome without an intervention, and that is primarily to do with recruitment but, more importantly, retention of staff. On behalf of those 1,200 children and their parents, I ask the Taoiseach as respectfully as I can to try to intervene or lend assistance to the HSE in the provision of the services. It is becoming a very serious issue which, as he well knows, has very profound impacts on children in the long term.

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