Ivana Bacik (Dublin Bay South, Labour)

Today, as the Taoiseach knows and as we all know, marks the beginning of the 50-hour protest by young Cara Darmody. Like others, I welcome Cara and her father Mark to the Gallery. Cara is an incredible campaigner for the rights of children with additional needs, and she is only 14 years old. She is staging this protest, as the Taoiseach knows, to raise awareness of what is an emergency, the Government's failure to comply with the Disability Act. The Taoiseach has just said in response that the status quo is "not tenable". Of course the status quo is not tenable. It is not tenable for children like Cara's brothers or for the many thousands of children, 15,000 children nationally, who are now languishing on waiting lists awaiting an assessment of need, in breach of the Government's own law.

When the HSE receives an application, it is set out in law that the assessment of need must be carried out within six months. My colleague Deputy Alan Kelly has received responses to parliamentary questions which reveal that in the first quarter of this year, that legally binding six-month deadline was missed in a shocking 93% of cases, which is an extraordinarily high rate of failure. It is a desperate embarrassment, and it is an ongoing problem that the Taoiseach has inherited from his own outgoing Government, the previous Government. There can be no passing of the buck. The Taoiseach said there would be a step change; he used that language again just now.

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