Brian Stanley (Laois, Independent)

I welcome the opportunity to speak on this important motion and commend the campaign team and Cara and Mark Darmody. They should not have to be here. This should have been sorted because people have been raising it for over two decades. The waiting times are scandalous. Under the Disability Act 2005, the waiting time is supposed to be a maximum of six months, so the law is clearly being broken here. A total of 15,296 children are overdue their assessments of special needs. Only 4,162 were carried out by the HSE in 2024, according to its figures. Only a measly 7% are being done within the legal timeframe of six months. This is clearly a failure on every count. The Government is failing in its legal obligations and, according to the Minister, the number waiting for these assessments of need could run to 25,000 by year end.

In Laois, the waiting times to get an assessment of need are absolutely shocking. Aileen, a mother, is just one of many people who have contacted me on this. She waited for years to get her son an assessment of need and then had to go private for it. They had to pay and they had to have the assessment of need and then a multidisciplinary assessment, which in total cost €2,000. This family are on a modest income. For the past six years, Aileen has been paying privately for therapies. Her son got just four short sessions in the six years. She paid for all the other sessions. Her second child, a daughter, has been on a waiting list since 19 September 2023 and has not yet been called for an assessment of need. Aileen cannot get a reply by either telephone or email as to when she may get one. This is part of what parents are up against. They are left in the dark. There are just no answers. Sandra is another parent I have dealt with. Her first daughter was on a waiting list for a year and a half before getting an assessment of need. Her other daughter was put on a waiting list on 12 August last year and Sandra has not received any information whatsoever since then as to when she may be called or whether she will be called.

Assessment of need appointments, of course, are only the start of it. Once the assessment of need is done, the assessor has to do a report, they have to pass it on to a liaison officer, a service plan has to be drawn up and the liaison officer is then supposed to arrange the delivery of services. This is where it really gets difficult because next you have to do battle to try to get these sessions. I can tell the Minister of State that it is a battle in Laois because they hardly exist. I will quote to her the figures for the multidisciplinary teams in the CDNTs in Laois. The level of staffing for occupational therapy is at only 33%. These are HSE figures, not mine. Speech and language therapy is at 46%. Physiotherapy is at 50%. Therapy assistance is at zero. Dietetics is at zero. Behavioural therapists - this is incredible as this is one of the most important positions on the team - are at zero. They are not there. The service just does not exist. What is happening in County Laois, therefore, is that parents are being offered group sessions where parents are brought in. That is fine and dandy, and group sessions may have a role. That is being offered in nearly all cases, from what I can find out, but there are no services for the child - none whatsoever. Laois Offaly Families for Autism and other voluntary groups are filling the gaps as best they can. They pay 50% of the cost of the therapies and the parents pay 50%. It is a stopgap solution. LOFFA tells me it spent €38,000 last year on matching funding to try to do this. This is not acceptable.

I am trying to impress on the Minister of State as best I can the need for the Government to comply with its legal obligations, take emergency action, make the funding available and set specific target dates by which the Government can comply with its legal obligation and deliver long-term solutions. As the Minister of State knows as well as I do, that needs workforce planning. We need to start training and recruiting people and we need to retain them. One area that has been mentioned in the past for some of those disciplines is apprenticeships. That may be appropriate. I know they are not appropriate for some other disciplines. The Government really needs to be imaginative about this and push it on. We need to fund the special needs services and provide this and provide appropriate school places. I know that work is being done on this, but there are still many children without places who will need them in September, and that work needs to be progressed quickly.

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