Pearse Doherty (Donegal, Sinn Fein) | Oireachtas source

Ar fud an Stáit, tá an Rialtas ag ligean síos agus ag teip leanaí agus daoine óga le míchumais agus riachtanais speisialta. Níl idirghabhála a d’athródh saolta na bpáistí seo á gcur ar fáil dóibh. Tá na mílte daoine óga le míchumais agus riachtanais speisialta fágtha ar an imeall agus an Rialtas seo ag diúltú seirbhísí dóibh. Inniu, ba mhaith liom cás Harry, gasúr beag naoi mbliana d’aois as Baile Átha Cliath, a ardú leis an Aire.

Across the State, children and young people with disabilities and special needs are being failed. Vital services, such as speech and language therapy, occupational therapy and physiotherapy, are not bring provided to these children. These are life-changing interventions. They are essential if our children are to reach their full potential, to thrive and to participate in their communities. If they are not provided, the quality of life for thousands of children and young people is profoundly affected and can have long-lasting consequences for them.

The HSE is currently reorganising the provision of these therapies. The progressing disability services, PDS, programme is meant to be making things better, but families and teachers on the front line are telling us a very different story, namely, that things are getting worse.

Harry Kirwan, from Dublin, is nine years old. He attends Scoil Mochua, Clondalkin. His teachers describe him as fun loving, always smiling, and a boy who loves being involved in everything that is happening around him. Although Harry is non-verbal, with the aid of his iPad he is very much a real talker. He also has a talent for numbers - a boy with so much potential and so much energy.

Harry has cerebral palsy and a mild-to-moderate intellectual disability and last year, he underwent serious hip surgery. In order to be able to stand and walk again, he needs physiotherapy. Although physiotherapy is available in Scoil Mochua, Harry cannot access this service. His family and teachers have told us that, because of the delay in accessing physiotherapy, Harry may never be able to walk or stand again. Why is this being allowed to happen?

PDS allocates interventions based on a child's home address, not his or her school address. Harry and his family live in the geographic area of community healthcare organisation, CHO, 6 where there are no physiotherapy services available to him but his school is in the area of HSE CHO 7. Despite the fact that there are physiotherapists available in Scoil Mochua, his school, the rules prevent these clinicians from supporting him and as a result, Harry has received no State-supported physiotherapy since his surgery last year. Harry is not alone, not even in his school. There are six children currently being denied services in this school because of this bureaucratic madness. Across the State, there are thousands more. This is nothing short of a scandal.

My question is, how can the Government continue to neglect young children of this nature and how can it be justified? Why is the Government not guaranteeing that all children and young people with disabilities and special needs get the support they need? Why is the HSE denying Harry access to life-altering physiotherapy? The HSE needs to stop the meetings and start treating these children. Parents are telling us that the situation on the ground is worse now than ever before and action is needed. I ask the Minister, Deputy Donohoe, today what will he do to ensure that we have therapists on the ground in each of the CHO areas to provide the vital services that so many children, such as Harry, deserve and so desperately need.

See this speech in context