Paul Murphy (Dublin South West, RISE) | Oireachtas source

Cara's meeting this morning outside the Dáil was a powerful one. We heard about the horrendous failure by this State of so many children across this country. She made the point that she should not have to be here. She should be in school. She should not have to fight for the rights of her brothers and for the tens of thousands of other children who have been failed. What we get from the Government are empty promises and empty words. It cynically allows motions to pass, with no attempt to actually implement them. There has been a continuation of that failure. I will give the Tánaiste an example. Oisín is an eight-year-old who lives in Templeogue. He has significant additional needs. He requires speech and language therapy, occupational therapy, psychology and feeding therapy. He has been on the list for those supports since 2018 but he has not had a single support - no therapy, no nothing. His mother got an e-mail from the CDNT in Chamber House last week which stated that "we are currently only starting to make children active with the team that we referred in the year 2016". Given that he has been on the list since 2018, that means that at the very best, it is going to be 2026 or 2027 before he gets any supports from the State.

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