Carol Nolan (Offaly, Independent)

I begin my brief remarks by commending the parents and the disability advocates who are highlighting this issue. I also commend and applaud all of those therapists who are demoralised, forced to work in a system that is just not fit for purpose and against a level of demand that is simply unprecedented. There seems to be very little point in standing up here yet again and simply repeating that the assessment of needs system is broken. We all know that. We all know there are thousands of children and families whose entire lives are put on hold because of it. What we need to focus on is pragmatic solutions and one such solution is to hire private therapists to clear the backlog. There is a serious backlog in many areas. CHO 8 Laois-Offaly in particular is very bad and has been for many years. That is where the focus needs to be. We need to bring in the private therapists and continue with the recruitment. In my constituency there are 530 children waiting on an assessment of need. If the two CDNTs that cover Offaly and north Laois, east Offaly is included, the figure is 530. Why is it that emergencies like this go on for so long? Why is it that there is a lack of urgency and that the HSE cannot hire therapists? What is it about the culture of the HSE and indeed the political culture that seems almost immune to effective action? There is something profoundly wrong at a fundamental level that goes way beyond the organisational and the structural. We have the will but despite all the apparent best efforts of Government the crisis goes on and on and so many children are failed and left behind. Why are so many of our children in need of complex disability interventions? What has happened to generate this level of demand? We must listen to therapists working in the field. We must respect them and support them. We must trust their judgment as to what it will take to deliver real change. There can be no more top-down approaches to this crisis. We need a revolution in our understanding of service-----

See this speech in context