Séamus Healy (Tipperary South, Independent)

I compliment the remarkable courage of Cara Darmody, a 14-year-old disability rights campaigner from my constituency. I welcome her and her dad here this evening. Cara started her campaign in support of her two brothers, who have autism diagnoses, but now she is supporting and campaigning on behalf of all children in the State with disabilities. She has been very successful to date. She extracted €10 million from the current Tánaiste during the general election campaign. This issue, of course, was huge in the election campaign, and we had all sorts of promises and commitments. Housing and disability services were the biggest issues during the campaign and they are supposed to be the Government's highest priorities. "More needs to be done." That is what we have heard time and time again. Sorry, but it does not wash any more. This has been the standard response from successive Ministers for years. I have been raising this issue in this House for over ten years. There was a parliamentary question on 2 February 2017, and on 22 February 2018 I raised the issue during Leaders' Questions with the current Tánaiste, who was Minister for Health at the time. It is always the same answer: "We must do more." He said on that day:

I thank Deputy Healy for raising this very important issue on the assessment of needs for children with disabilities. He is entirely correct; this is an area in which the State needs to do an awful lot more.

Fine Gael and Fianna Fáil have been in government in one form or another for the last 14 years but, far from improving the situation, the provision of assessments of need has disimproved hugely.

Some 15,296 children are on the waiting lists, up 8% from the end of last year. In the first quarter of the year, only 7% were assessed within the time limit. The HSE stated there will be 25,000 children on the list at the end of this year and the average waiting time will be more than two years. These figures are shocking. Children are being failed every hour of every day. The State is breaking the law every hour of every day. The question has to be asked, is there one law for citizens and another for Government Ministers? If a citizen broke the law, they would be prosecuted. I wonder when a Government Minister will be prosecuted. I was shocked at the arrogance of the Taoiseach during Leaders' Questions today. His attitude was "shoot the messenger" and blame the psychologists - we are breaking the law but we will change the law. I warn the Taoiseach there is widespread frustration and anger among the public about this issue. Any attempt to change the six-month legal timeframe will be met with huge pushback that will endanger his Government. I urge the Taoiseach to take emergency action now on this issue before it is too late.

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