Leo Varadkar (Dublin West, Fine Gael) | Oireachtas source

I do not think that parents having to pay for therapies or assessments is the solution but I understand why many parents have to do that because they are waiting so long. There is a mechanism now by which the HSE can refund part of the cost of doing that and we want to expand that during the year but I do not think that is the solution on its own. It might help in some cases but it is something we are willing to do, which is to refund some or all of the costs where parents are effectively forced to go privately because they cannot get the assessment or therapy they need.

On the UN convention, the last Government which I had the honour to lead, ratified the UN United Nations Convention on the Rights of Persons with Disabilities. It is the intention of this Government to ratify the optional protocol and we will do that.

Getting back to what I said earlier, it is a mistake to think that the legal rights or UN conventions build houses or provide therapies. They do not. They become another basis for litigation and very often that ties up the staff resources and budget of the State in defending litigation and paying damages. We need to be frank with each other and with people about that. Creating legal and constitutional rights does not train nurses or build houses. It does not mean that there are ten therapists there where there used to be five and, in fact, it can actually backfire sometimes. That is because time and resources then get diverted into managing litigation, in paying lawyers and damages, rather than being spent on services.

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