Mary Lou McDonald (Dublin Central, Sinn Fein) | Oireachtas source

The Taoiseach has been in government for 12 years. What he has read into the record of the Dáil just reflects a litany of failure and inefficiency, and a lack of priority given to this area and to these children. One of my colleagues, Deputy Browne, another Tipperary Deputy, heard today that a one-year-old child with autism from Tipperary got word from the HSE that the first services available to that child will be in 2028. There are other children waiting for services or assessments of need, who are being told that they will wait for that length of time. That is not acceptable. I have to say that for an individual who has been in government for 12 years to stand up and try to pretend it is all rosy and that there is not a fundamental issue here, in terms of political purpose and funding and support for the Minister of State responsible for this area, Deputy Rabbitte, is just not acceptable. We should not be standing up here citing cases of one-year-olds, two-year-olds and four-year-olds, who are left in this situation.

There are 17,000 children waiting for first contact with their specialist CDNT, and 10,000 of those children are waiting more than a year. Yet, the Taoiseach actually up and talked to me about SNAs, which is an important issue, but a separate issue. He should not try to dodge the issue. He said the Government is doing the devil and all to get more staff and therapists. The Government's countermotion stated that discussions are ongoing between the Department of Health and Department of Further and Higher Education, Research, Innovation and Science. The Government is still at the point of discussing this. Is the Taoiseach serious? Will the State reimburse those who have to go privately for assessment of needs and for services and therapies? Will it open the purse strings and support those families?

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