Ryan O'Meara (Tipperary North, Fianna Fail)

I would like to start by recognising the young Tipperary schoolgirl outside the gates of Leinster House this evening in the pouring rain. We are discussing this incredibly important issue because of her. Cara Darmody is an inspiration for the work she has done. She is not doing it for praise or recognition but rather for the love she bears for her brothers and family and the empathy and understanding she has for thousands of children and families waiting on lists for far too long for an assessment of need.

I am mindful not to repeat what many of the speakers who went before me said and who spoke passionately about this issue. Many quoted the statistics. It is completely unacceptable that so many families and children are waiting so long for the services, supports and treatments they deserve, but behind every statistic is a human being. I acknowledge the work the Minister has done to date and the mammoth task in front of her in her new position as Minister for disability, along with the Minister of State. During the general election campaign, this issue arose time and again on the doors in north Tipperary and north-west Kilkenny, as it did in every village, town, city and rural road. My experience of meeting families affected by the waiting times for assessments of need and the services their children need was that it was first parents themselves raising this issue, then grandparents and other family members and then neighbours. By the end of the general election campaign, it was regularly raised on the doors even by people who did not have a close connection to this issue but who felt a sense of urgency and concern for the young people the system is currently failing.

I appreciate that this issue has been given priority by this Government. Deputy Foley sits at Cabinet as a senior Minister with responsibility for this issue for the first time. The area of disability as a whole is intertwined throughout the programme for Government. This will be a defining issue for the Government, that is, whether it can deliver on this issue and provide the assessments of need and services as a matter of urgency for those on waiting lists for years. My constituency, spanning north Tipperary and north-west Kilkenny, covers two HSE areas. A small part of north Tipperary is in the south Tipperary HSE area. The postcode lottery is real and scary. It is frustrating and angering to speak to parents who live in a boundary area and to see it myself. That the place where a person comes from determines whether they get a service more quickly than others, although still in an untimely manner, is completely unacceptable. We need to look at private funding to get these assessment of need waiting lists cleared as a matter of urgency. More than 15,000 was the number quoted today. That is 15,000 children, families and parents who sit in front of us in constituency offices as we try to figure out what we can do to help them in their particular circumstances.

Over the course of this debate, we have met so many parents, who are ferocious advocates on behalf of their children. They know the system inside out and live the frustrations every day, but they should not have to be advocates for their children to get these services, whether an assessment of need or all the services that should automatically come to their children thereafter. They are supposed to be there to love, protect and support their children, not to be their voice on this issue. The system should be that child's voice. Parents should not have to do it. The voice I want to be heard today in particular is that of children waiting on lists who cannot access services and do not have parents who can be that advocate or that voice to shout and roar for their children and fight for them if they have to - those children who are going unheard. It scares me that there are children whose parent, for whatever reason, is not able to be that advocate. We have to be that voice. They have to be heard. Cara Darmody is that voice today in the pouring rain. She deserves the recognition. I do not think for a second that she wants it, but we have to stand up and fight as legislators, as she is doing for her brothers and every one of those 15,000 children who are waiting.

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