Pat Buckley (Cork East, Sinn Fein) | Oireachtas source

I thank the Labour Party for tabling this motion. Going to the High Court to fight for assessments of need for your children in 2023 is not on. I recently heard from a family that had to go to the High Court. As many speakers said, it is embarrassing for families to give their personal details or their children’s details. I read those reports. It went to the High Court but the HSE decided if it changed the assessment of needs the process would start again. The case was dismissed and the family have gone back to stage one. A new assessment of needs will take four or five years. It is stalling.

While in the Chamber I received a phone call. I will check up on it after but it is bonkers. A family in Tipperary received a letter this morning for their one-year-old child on an assessment of need and is told the appointment will be in 2028. That is how bad the situation is.

We were at the autism committee yesterday and the Minister of State, Deputy Butler, said there were more than 700 vacancies within disability services. That is a major problem straightaway. People spoke of recruitment and retention in section 38s and 39s. The Government needs to start paying and valuing people in the service.

The programme for Government commits to extending the remit for the NTPF. I am not a lover of that because I cannot understand how we have to outsource it to other people when we should be bringing those in to cover those services. In 2017, I sat on the disability committee with Caoimhghín Ó Caoláin, who does savage work on this, listening to families of those in their early teens who have autism and who kick off in the family homes. I met with families in the committee rooms who said they had to put these people into what is basically an Alsatian cage for the child’s protection and that of the family. That is still happening today. That has to be addressed as soon as possible because we are failing people. It is causing savage stress on families and it has to move on.

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