Micheál Martin (Cork South-Central, Fianna Fail)

The Deputy is not correct in that at all. He asked specifically about the law and I gave him a straight answer that this Government will deal with that aspect of it. However, the outgoing Government dealt with a whole load of other issues pertaining to this. For example, 4,162 assessments were completed in 2024, a 30% increase on 2023, and that upward trend is continuing with the assessments that were completed in the first three months of this year. There was a 65% increase in the first quarter of this year compared with the same period last year. It is not as if nothing is being done or the issue is being ignored. That is just a deliberate distortion by the Deputy's good self. He also needs to look at the reality and see what he is saying we should do about the balance between assessment and direct intervention with the therapists we have, be they those in the private or the public sector. There is a finite capacity. Maybe we can get more out of the entirety of that capacity of therapists in the country, be it private or public, but the Deputy needs to come clean as well and not just take the comfortable position of saying that whatever we produce on this side of the House, he will simply condemn and have a go at it.

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