Ivana Bacik (Dublin Bay South, Labour)

That is not what we have seen.

It is two years to the week this week since we in Labour brought a Dáil motion, with the great support and encouragement of Cara Darmody, setting out a constructive plan to take on and address these waiting lists and to treat the chronic delay in diagnoses like the national emergency it is. Many of us will recall that on that day in this House, the then Minister of State, Anne Rabbitte, made a powerful speech acknowledging responsibility for failure and the profound impact on children and families.

Anne Rabbitte made a commitment that if capacity did not improve, she would adopt our Labour Party proposal to reimburse parents for private assessments as an emergency and as a constructive way of addressing this appalling shortfall. We all took that significant announcement as a sign that the Taoiseach and his Government would place a greater focus on resolving this. However, the stories and accounts we are hearing from parents and families throughout the country and the waiting list figures really say otherwise. We understand the Government will not oppose tonight's cross-party motion. That is welcome, but non-opposition is not enough. The Government did not oppose our Labour Party motion two years ago on this very topic. It made all the right noises then, but the problem has grown worse since then.

The responses to Deputy Kelly's parliamentary questions show that in the first quarter of this year, just 1,412 assessments were carried out. That is a tiny number, a fraction of the need, when we see that more than 15,000 children are overdue an assessment. This number is expected to grow to 25,000 by the end of this year. I am asking the Taoiseach, as Cara Darmody asks, when this will be treated as the national emergency it is. When will we see those waiting lists properly and effectively addressed?

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