Claire Kerrane (Roscommon-Galway, Sinn Fein)

Listening to the contributions made on the Government side of the House, most of them sound like commentators. The waiting list for assessments of need did not increase overnight. This has been an issue for many years and the demand for an assessment of need or for disability services has been rising consistently. This is absolutely nothing new. I pay tribute to Cara Darmody and her dad, Mark. At 14 years of age, she has made a really valuable contribution to the debate around assessment of need and highlighted the difficulties in accessing autism and disability services. She has been a real voice for children and parents and she is due a great deal of credit. The best way we can honour Cara's advocacy is to turn the tide on this issue once and for all.

Last week, the HSE provided me with the latest waiting list figures for assessments of need. There are 15,296 children, a record number. These are children who have not had their legal requirement met as they should have received their assessment of need within six months. This impacts on every aspect of their lives, particularly in school. We often hear from parents that schools are totally hamstrung in providing the supports and services children need. In the case of services and supports for these children, every day counts. The Government is failing these children and, again, this is not a new issue. The actions taken by the Government - there have not been many but I am thinking of Cara's fund in particular, which was welcome - have not been enough. No matter how many achievements are lauded by the Government in terms of the number of special classes or the money put into private capacity for those waiting for an assessment of need, it has not been enough.

Sometimes waiting list numbers are just seen as numbers and are almost normalised. Nobody is surprised any more as they continue to go up and up, but we have to remember all the time that these are children. They are children who require additional supports to meet their potential but the Government is not doing enough. Parents are at the end of their tether. We need to see private capacity bulked up and Cara's fund adequately funded. We also need to see the workforce plan to provide the number of therapists needed. The top and bottom of this issue is that we do not have the people to do the job they need to do.

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