David Stanton (Cork East, Fine Gael) | Oireachtas source

I thank the Ceann Comhairle's office for selecting this Topical Issue matter and I thank the Minister of State for being here. I recognise the huge efforts and work she is doing in this area. I am sincere about that. I know what is going on. I know the work the Minister of State is doing and I commend her on it.

I was contacted on 20 December last by a family in my area. It is best to give an example here. This family has two children, twin boys, who will be three years of age next week. The parents noticed an issue with one of them in November 2021. He started stimming, which involves repetitive body movements and hands flapping. They did not know what the behaviour was at the time. When they brought the children to see the public health nurse in April 2022, however, the nurse told them that from her observation, she was concerned about their development and strongly advised the parents to have them assessed by the area assessment GP, which they did. That happened at the end of May last year. That GP was quite concerned and she sent referrals for both boys to Cope Foundation as their needs were complex. The situation is that one of the boys nudges the parents to the fridge when he wants something. They are almost three years old. The other child does not do that at all; he just bites them. They believe that is due to frustration through not being able to communicate. Both boys are non-verbal. Their parents hope they will be able to talk one day and want to give them the gift of speech. They do not react to their names being called. They are both attending a crèche to help them improve their communication and social skills but they cannot do any really simple things like feed themselves or brush their teeth.

This family has another child who is nine months old and is ahead of them at this stage. This is causing a lot of anxiety. This can have other serious consequences because the children cannot tell the parents if there is a problem or they are in pain. One of them had a medical problem recently, could not communicate with the parents, was screaming in pain and ended up in a serious situation. It was almost life-threatening. Luckily enough, they got to the hospital and he went through CT scans, was diagnosed with a serious infection and had an operation to treat it. If untreated, he could have lost his sight.

I wrote to Cope Foundation and received a response quickly. This is no criticism of Cope. The chief executive and team are, as the Minister of State will be aware, dedicated and hard-working. When I asked if they could do anything, Cope replied, "Unfortunately, not." It continued:

Given the wait times for assessment and intervention I would expect that this family will be waiting for a considerable length of time before they are seen, possibly up to two years. [The children will then be five.] Children’s disability services are experiencing numerous challenges that are causing such delays including but not confined to - the numbers of children that have and continue to be referred (these were significantly underestimated by the HSE at the time of transfer to the Network Teams) [which is a problem]; difficulties in recruiting and training staff.

Cope acknowledges the considerable work the Minister of State, Deputy Rabbitte, is doing to try to move things on but the challenges remain. Early intervention is crucial, as the Minister of State realises and we all know, in cases like this. These children need intervention now. If the public sector cannot intervene, will the Minister of State make funds available so the parents can access services for assessment, treatment and support in the private sector? That is the only way we can go in this area. I understand that in some instances if parents pay for assessments in the private sector, the public sector does not recognise those and insists on getting them done publicly. If the Minister of State has the funding, will she make it available to families such as this to get essential early intervention in place?

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