Ruairí Ó Murchú (Louth, Sinn Fein) | Oireachtas source

I am sure I could do what an awful lot of other people have done and literally go through a list of every issue in the constituency but I would probably need an hour and a half. I noticed my constituency colleague got through a fair amount. I suppose I could be smart and state her party has been in government for a considerable period. We will see what delivery there will be from this Government because many promises have been put down in the programme for Government. We need to deal with the particular issue of the Covid inquiry. We know of those families who lost loved ones in Dealgan House.

I do not believe anyone is particularly happy with what has been in the public domain in regard to a Covid-19 inquiry and the lack of compellability. We need to see that lessons are learned, rather than just talking about learning lessons in dealing with the situation. I think of the families of the at least 22 people or who died in tragic circumstances.

However, I want to deal with the reply to a parliamentary question I tabled, which stated there are approximately 530 positions unfilled in children’s disability network teams, CDNTs. I would say I am shocked but I do not believe anyone dealing with families who cannot access services is shocked. We know that everything should be done from the point of view of recruitment, retention, workforce planning and training, but even if that is done, we will not be able to fill all those gaps straight away. We need to deal with the issue at hand, namely, putting the service where it is required. We have seen where the school inclusion model has operated. It should be a holistic system so that we are offering best practice to teachers, SNAs, staff and parents. It relates to the entire life of the child. Unless we get down to that issue and deliver it across the board, we will constantly just be dealing in our constituency offices with parents who are being failed by the State, particularly parents of children with autism and many other disabilities.

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