Catherine Ardagh (Dublin South Central, Fianna Fail)

Families are exhausted, battling not for something extraordinary but for something fundamental, an assessment of need. It is supposed to be a gateway to support. In practice, it is a locked door. Without it, children cannot access home tuition, school places, the domiciliary care allowance or, most critical, any therapy. The message that families receive is simple: no assessment, no services. More than 15,000 children have been waiting for more than six months for an assessment of need, and the HSE predicts that could rise to 25,000 before the year is out.

That is not a waiting list; it is a crisis. Even when an assessment is secured, it does not guarantee help. Families are offered group webinars, leaflets or parenting courses, often scheduled during working hours. That is not meaningful support but window-dressing. Some families, like my own, are forced to go private. We paid for our son's assessment over two years ago. Even that report is now out of date. Finding a provider was not easy. We were lucky to be in a position to pay; most families are not.

Families do not seek assessments for the sake of paperwork. They do it because they want to help their child and they know, as we all do, that early intervention works. The sooner you start, the better the outcome, yet our system delays at every step. It frustrates and withholds and in doing so lets children fall behind, sometimes permanently. I acknowledge my good friend Cara Darmody, an amazing autism advocate, who has begun her 50-hour sit-out outside Leinster House today with her father Mark. Cara has done more to shine a light on these failings than many adults in public life. She is a teenager and is already showing extraordinary courage and leadership.

One development I welcome is the pilot programme placing therapists back into a small number of schools. It is a step in the right direction but we must go further. I understand 39 placements were on offer and the number of therapists who sought a place was overwhelming. It shows where therapists want to work. We need therapists to be restored to all special schools and special classes in mainstream schools.

That is where children are and where the support should be. The progressing disability model removed therapists from schools, fragmented the system and made it harder for children to receive the care where they learn. This resulted in families feeling exhausted, staff demoralised and national vacancy rates in CDNTs of more than 22%, with higher rates in areas such as CHO 7 in Dublin South Central. We have built a system in which even therapists no longer want to work. That tells you everything you need to know. We need action. We need: access to assessments that do not require people going private; a statutory right to therapy following a diagnosis; therapists based in schools and special schools; a full review of the progressing disability model; and a real workforce plan to recruit and retain skilled professionals.

I heard Ministers and the Taoiseach suggest that legislative reform may be needed to improve how assessments of need are delivered and used. If that is true, we need detail and we need it now. How will this legislation work in practice? Will it simply reframe the process or will it guarantee that identified needs are actually met? How will need be recorded, tracked and enforced? Will these written pathways have legal standing? Will they include timelines and entitlements to therapy or will they become yet another document that families cannot rely on? We cannot let this be another policy promise that sounds good on the plinth but falls flat on the ground. Families need certainty. They need follow-through and, most of all, they need the State to stand with them rather than against them. We are not seeking gold-plated care; we are asking for fairness, respect and for a child’s right to be supported in reaching their potential. Cara should not have to sit out in the cold to get that message across to us. While she does, however, we should listen and act.

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