Ivana Bacik (Dublin Bay South, Labour) | Oireachtas source

The Taoiseach's Government is failing neurodiverse children and their families. It needs to do more on autism services. One year ago, we in Labour put forward a Dáil motion on autism services for children. It included a call for action to end the lengthy delays, the backlog, in accessing assessments of need for children. Responding to our motion then, the Minister of State, Deputy Rabbitte, committed to reimbursing parents for private assessments where the State had failed to provide them after a certain time. That announcement was significant and very welcome.

As we all know, receiving a diagnosis is just a first step. It does not guarantee access to school places or therapies and cannot fix a society which is inaccessible and even discriminatory. Without a diagnosis, however, children and young people with autism are often deprived of access to the supports they need to thrive. Lack of diagnosis deprives them and their families of clarity and can delay detection of other conditions, such as ADHD. We therefore welcomed that announcement from the Government at the time, a year ago, because the HSE's waiting lists are a huge part of the problem and parents should not have to pay for something the State should be providing. In a cost-of-living crisis, many parents simply cannot pay, with the cost of an assessment often as much as €2,000. We were led to believe then that parents would begin to be reimbursed if the waiting lists had not been resolved by August 2023. Instead, since then, as one parent recently told me, things are not improving. "It's worse they're getting," they said.

I know the Taoiseach is aware of this because in his recent Ard-Fheis speech he said that the backlog in assessments of need must be unblocked. He committed to establishing and chairing a Cabinet committee to break down these silos and address this. Last week, that committee on children, education and disability was announced. Under the Taoiseach's predecessor, however, there was already a Cabinet committee on children and education, which the new Taoiseach sat on as a Minister. Does adding the word "disability" to the title constitute the height of the new ambition to focus on disability? If so, it is disappointing that the "new energy" we have heard so much about may have petered out already. If this was really a serious commitment, would the Taoiseach not establish a stand-alone Cabinet committee on disability? It is more than 25 years since Mervyn Taylor of the Labour Party first initiated legislation to end discrimination on disability grounds but the State continues to fail so many. It is hard to see how appending the issue of disability rights onto the existing committee will make a change. We need real ambition and movement.

I know that in June 2023, the Taoiseach met the amazing young advocate, Cara Darmody, only 13, who has worked so hard to raise awareness about autism and to ensure that children get timely access to assessments. We worked with Cara and her family on the motion last year but there has been no follow-up since. Will the Taoiseach meet Cara as soon as possible? I spoke to her father yesterday about this. When will we see that commitment from last year made good? When will the Taoiseach's Government start repaying families who have had no option but to seek assessments elsewhere? When will the Government vindicate the rights of all those waiting on assessments of need? Will the Taoiseach meet Cara?

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