Hildegarde Naughton (Galway West, Fine Gael) | Oireachtas source

The Deputy is entirely correct about the stress, frustration, worry and anger of parents out there, and I absolutely acknowledge this point. They want access to therapies for their children. In many cases, they also want a diagnosis. There is a combination of reasons why people look for assessments of need. I absolutely accept that.

The administrative hubs are in CHOs 1, 4, 5, 7 and 8. Established assessment hubs are also in CHOs 3, 6 and 9. The AON administration hubs will aim to provide a single point for receipt of AON applications and allocation to assessment officers to ensure a spread of demand of assessment officers across all available resources. The roll-out of the regional assessment hubs sees the provision of personnel dedicated to the delivery of assessments of needs while preserving the time of other clinical staff for therapy interventions for children and their families. I absolutely accept, therefore, that this matter is about therapies as well and this is another body of work we are doing in the Department with the HSE to ensure we are recruiting and retaining therapists.

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