Simon Harris (Wicklow, Fine Gael) | Oireachtas source

I thank Deputy O'Callaghan for raising what is one of the most serious issues we face in the public service and in the lives of children with disabilities, namely, access to therapy provision and the process they go through to gain that access. To be clear, the waiting lists for assessment of need are far too long. This is having a significant negative impact on the lives of children and their families. I accept the point the Deputy has made and I believe it is the right one, in that we need to look at the system. I accept that is going to require a more detailed debate in the House. It is clear to me that, if we have a situation where an assessment of need is lasting on average 36 hours and in some cases up to 90 hours before a child gets any therapy, even when the therapist carrying out the assessment does not believe that level of assessment is required - I will be very careful lest people misrepresent what I am saying, as children have a legal entitlement to an assessment of need, which I believe is vital and I will always defend and cherish that right - it is the rigidity under which that right is being interpreted with regard to the number of hours over which it must be carried out that is causing a significant challenge. I have spoken to many parents across Ireland on this issue, and there is absolutely no point in my view in a therapist spending one third of his or her working week on assessments rather than providing the therapy, particularly when that professional - not me as a politician - believes that his or her time could be better used in the provision of therapy. We have got to get a better model.

The Deputy is right, in that I said this was an area of priority. It is an area of priority. I have met Cara Darmody, the incredible young teenager from Tipperary. She put it up to me very forcefully, articulately and compellingly that we had to do much better. She also made a suggestion that, in fairness, colleagues in the Labour Party tabled a motion on regarding the use of using private money in the short term. We have done that and have seen 2,479 more children get assessments as a result. It is not enough, though, if we have a situation where we continue to have a child needing 36 to 90 hours of assessment when the parent and the therapist do not believe that that time is needed.

I have engaged with the Minister, Deputy Foley, and the Minister of State, Deputy Naughton, on this to see how the current system can be reformed because I believe it is clear to everybody that it is not working. I can ream off figures as to extra investment we have made about extra people we have hired and all of that, but that would miss the point. We need to change the system, which I believe will likely require legislative change, where I would like to work constructively in this House to see if we can get to a point of consensus on that. It is not about the right to assessment, which I will defend. Rather, the rigidity stemming from the 2022 High Court judgment is, in the views of the healthcare providers, the single biggest challenge in terms of the waiting times for children's disability services.

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