Anne Rabbitte (Galway East, Fianna Fail) | Oireachtas source

Deputy O'Sullivan is right. We managed to clear the backlog with the funding that was sourced in 2020 when we had 6,500 children waiting for an assessment of need. It took us approximately 14 months to clear the entire backlog. Why have we found ourselves here again? We have found ourselves here again because of the soft model, which is the standard operational procedure, SOP, which meant that 10,000 children were deemed to have a right to access an assessment of need in its entirety. The assessment of need does not take one or two hours. It is actually the guts of approximately 30 hours of full assessment. Let us also be clear: when we cleared the backlog in 2020, it was also the full 30 hours' assessment.

The other piece we will have to look at is the flexibility of doing the interventions. The no-show rate is only 10%, so to be very fair to parents, they are very committed once they get a time to attend. Our no-show rates are very light in this regard. I have no doubt any parent who gets it will attend the assessment process.

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