Natasha Newsome Drennan (Carlow-Kilkenny, Sinn Fein)

Over 15,000 children are currently awaiting an assessment of need. By the end of this year, that number is expected to soar to over 24,000. The law set out in the Disability Act clearly states children must be assessed within six months, but only 7% of children are assessed within that timeframe. Day after day, the Government is breaking the law and, in doing so, failing vulnerable children.

After more than a decade of Fianna Fáil and Fine Gael running the Department, the neglect of children reached limits that none of us thought possible. To leave children waiting years for crucial interventions is nothing short of systemic child neglect. Every week and month, without proper supports in schools and communities, this inflicts untold damage on the children’s development. This crisis disproportionately targets ordinary working families. It is they who have been hit the hardest. Parents are forced to watch on as their children suffer and are denied the correct supports in school. The whole family bears the mental and emotional strain. An affected family is left with only two options: sit patiently for years as all the pressures build on it and their children suffer or pay thousands of euro for a private assessment.

With all the Government’s failures, there are people in the private sector profiting on the back of this. An autism assessment costs €2,000, an ADHD assessment costs €1,500, and a speech and language assessment costs €600, with follow-up sessions costing €90 each. What will the Government say in ten or 15 years’ time to the children failed under its watch? Children have been waiting years for an assessment and for proper supports. Right now, Fianna Fáil, Fine Gael and the Lowry Independents are carving out an utterly shameful legacy of neglect of tens of thousands of children across the State.

I cannot not name for the Minister all the families who come to my door, because there are too many, but what I can tell her is that they are struggling. Some are on second mortgages and some have lost their house. Families have torn apart by the cost and stress. Enough is enough; it is time to act now.

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