Martin Kenny (Sligo-Leitrim, Sinn Fein)

I pay tribute to Cara, her family and the thousands of families throughout the country who are in the same position. We all meet them in our constituencies. There are 15,296 people waiting for assessments of need. This wait-time can vary depending on their location and creates inequity across the system. Some children are better served than others based purely on geography. We saw this recently in Sligo-Leitrim where there is very high staff turnover, no clinical lead and waiting lists are rising daily. Many parents soon realise they are only starting the first battle in what seems a long and arduous war to try to obtain some sort of service for their children. The assessment of need is the first major hurdle in what they will soon come to discover is wait-list after wait-list. Many are forced into the private sector to get assessed at huge and ever-rising costs of anything from €1,200 to €2,200. Some of these assessments may not even be accepted by the Department because psychology services in Ireland are not fully regulated. This delay in assessments of need has a long and ever-lasting effect on many young people. Adequate services are not put in place soon enough, which has knock-on effects for future development.

The INTO recently voiced concerns regarding the growing involvement of teachers and school principals in assessment of children's needs due to the recent changes under the revised education report mechanism. Teachers are not clinically trained to diagnose complex disabilities leading to concerns about misidentification and incomplete assessments. Even when people get an assessment, and their fight has been hard for that, they wonder what is next. Where is their next battle? If they get through the assessment of need, they can and may be accepted by the children's disability network team. If they get that, they may be on another waiting list for a vital service. Occupational therapists, speech and language services, and psychology, educational and psychiatry services, all have delays and more delays. If the young person does not meet the criteria, he or she will be put onto another waiting list. That young person will be referred to the post-diagnostic team and, before he or she can be accepted, parents have to participate in a five-week course. This is mandatory for parents. They also have to request a one-to-one session with a post-diagnostic team psychologist and then, if it is accepted, the child is on a waiting list, which is currently set at 18 months.

The post-diagnostic team is for those with mild to moderate difficulties. If a child requires services for CAMHS, for moderate to severe difficulties, this is a separate application that must be filled in by parents in conjunction with doctors. Waiting times are anything from six to 12 months. In the meantime, parents are left to their own devices and told - we come across many of them regularly in our clinics - to bring their child to the emergency department if the child's mental health deteriorates. The impact on families is immense. The cumulative effect of delays, inconsistent practices and unclear responsibilities for services causes stress and frustration for parents who constantly have to fight and advocate for their child's right to support. There is a high turnover of staff who find that they are working in a stressed and understaffed environment to try to maintain services.

The Minister and the Government's response to the rights of children is to remove those rights by amending legislation. It is simply unacceptable.

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