Danny Healy-Rae (Kerry, Independent) | Oireachtas source

I thank the Labour Party for bringing this motion and giving us the opportunity to discuss this important matter here in the Chamber this morning.

There is nothing to top the joy of a newborn baby for a couple when they are lucky enough for that to happen. When something is wrong, however, and they discover that something is not right with the child, it can be a really big problem and, in some cases, it is a burden they must carry all of their lives until they depart from this life, and they must wonder what will happen to their son or their daughter. That is a big worry for those people.

The figures here are massive and it must be treated as an emergency. I am aware that some months ago I asked the Minister of State, Deputy Rabbitte, about this. We need to find out what is the cause of the increase in these levels of autism problems. We are not helping people. There are delays for assessments and for all of the therapies. We just do not have enough people. This is an important enough debate to have the senior Minister here, but he would rather be putting labels on bottles. That is his priority to write his name into history. Our priority is to deal with this issue. It is a serious matter. We must come to grips with it by providing enough help for those couples who have children with different developmental issues. We certainly need to get them assessed in time. It has been proven that those who are assessed and those who are helped may have a normal life. We need to do a lot of work in this regard and we need to get cracking.

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