Mattie McGrath (Tipperary, Independent) | Oireachtas source

This month, my office received a response from the HSE in respect of a young child in my constituency, the parents of whom applied for an assessment to be carried out for disability services. The application for assessment was made in 2017 when the child was in senior infants. In September 2023, the mother of this child contacted me after her child had finished primary school and she could not find a suitable school placement for the child as he had not had the assessment. This issue has been ongoing for the entire time the child was in national school. They were waiting for an assessment of need. The HSE admitted to me that it misplaced the file for six years. They waited for six years and are still waiting. The child has fallen through the cracks. That went on for six years, sé bliana.

Every day of the week, my office is contacted by parents who are at their wits' end and who cannot access services or get assessments. Even when they have assessments, there are no therapists. This is a shocking situation. I am contacted by parents who cannot access respite, parents who can no longer care for their children at home without supports and who are left in the devastating situation of seeking residential places that do not exist for their children. I am contacted by parents of children with mental health concerns who cannot access child and adolescent mental health services, CAMHS, and who are pushed between primary care teams and children's disability network team, CDNTs. Nobody wants to take on a case so they fob it off. I am contacted by parents concerned that the respite centres are only operational part time due to a lack of funding and a lack of staffing.

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Children's disability network teams, CDNTs, in south Tipperary are falling apart, with more than 1,424 children waiting for contact. That is appalling. I could go on to talk about the budget, but these families do not want to talk about the budget. They want to hear about the services they will be able to access. They have yet to receive contact from their CDNT. They want to know who will take care of their children when they pass away. Imagine that; it is so sad that people are thinking like that. They want to know their children will have an appropriate school place and that they can have respite services available, but they are not available. We can talk here all we want, but these families want action. They do not want talk. They want services. They need services and we as a country are failing our disabled citizens.

It is just shocking. The Minister of State must know that. I heard she stormed out of some meeting with officials some time ago. When is she going to take charge and ensure the volumes and oceans of money that have been going into the HSE are used correctly? It is all being syphoned off for management, management and more management and for trips, schools, offices, carpets and everything else. What is going on in there is obscene. The Minister of State, the Minister, Deputy Donnelly, and others must take charge of this. There is no accountability whatsoever.

I could talk to the Minister of State about what happened last night. Thankfully, at 3 o'clock this morning there were good people negotiating and they called off and avoided that action. Those people did not want to go on strike, but consider the anguish and trauma the service users and their parents and siblings went through, not sleeping last night thinking they had no-one to feed, change or mind them today. How is it so chaotic that it could come down to the last hour? The Minister of State should please look after the people and not the mandarins in the Department of Health.

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