Shónagh Ní Raghallaigh (Kildare South, Sinn Fein)

Kildare has the highest number of overdue AONs, second only to Dublin, with 1,700 children on waiting lists. I want to take this moment to speak about Isaac. He is 14 years old and has four siblings. He first got onto the AON waiting list eight years ago and has yet to receive a written diagnosis. Back in 2017, Isaac was first seen for an occupational therapy, OT, assessment and was diagnosed with developmental co-ordination disorder, DCD, despite his parents, Vivienne and John, suspecting something more was going on. They were told to come back in two years. When they did, there was no record of Isaac's file - the HSE had lost it - and he had to go back to the bottom of the waiting list.

When he began school, his mammy, Vivienne, fought for a National Educational Psychological Service, NEPS, assessment but was told Isaac's condition was not severe enough. All the while, he was struggling emotionally, socially and academically. On the advice of the school, his parents forked out €2,000 for ADHD and dyslexia assessments. In 2023, Isaac was finally taken back into primary care, where a psychologist confirmed his previous diagnosis and flagged autism as a required assessment, saying it should have been picked up seven years earlier. After yet another year of waiting, Isaac finally had a CAMHS appointment but it did not have the authority to conduct an autism assessment. Only in March of this year did Isaac get his assessment. He went eight years without the proper support and has been set back enormously by this. All along, it was an easy diagnosis.

Then there are Ruby and Luna McGarry, who are nine and four years old. Their parents submitted AON applications in February 2024. By law, assessments, as we know, should have been done by August 2024. We are now in May 2025 and there is still nothing. The HSE is blaming a backlog due to a High Court ruling but their mammy, Orla, notes that her third child was seen as part of that backlog two years ago, but only after paying privately. Orla and Andrew cannot afford to go down the private route this time. The McGarrys, like so many, are being strung along by a system that is breaking the law and breaking families in the process.

Those are just two stories from Kildare; there are thousands more out there.

See this speech in context