Mark Ward (Dublin Mid West, Sinn Fein)

The Bill before us is a Bill of optics to create an illusion that the Government is dealing with a health crisis that it created. It is like rearranging the deckchairs on the Titanic or an old-fashioned three-card trick that moves people from list to list without getting them the necessary treatment at the end of it. I will give the Minister some examples. In 2015, there was an agreement to place a much-needed primary healthcare centre in Rowlagh in my constituency. Planning permission was granted in 2018, followed by fire safety certificates and disability access certificates. It is now 2025 and not a sod of earth has been turned on this much-needed facility. The latest response I got from the Government is that the primary health centre for Rowlagh is currently on hold while the HSE evaluates current service needs.

The health needs of the people of Clondalkin and the families I meet daily have increased dramatically since 2015 and the people of my area feel abandoned by Fine Gael and Fianna Fáil. When I say the health needs have grown in my area, the Minister does not have to believe me. She just has to look at the latest figures that have come from the HSE about children with disabilities waiting for assessments of need. The number of children awaiting assessments of need is now expected to pass 25,000. That is 25,000 families and children who will be left in limbo. A total of 11,500 of these children are left waiting for first contact with the HSE, with nearly 8,000 of these children waiting for over a year before the HSE will even pick up the phone to contact their parents. When they finally receive the diagnosis, which could take years, these children are left on waiting lists for occupational therapy, speech and language therapy and psychology.

I have said numerous times that the Government is denying children in this State every right and every chance to reach their full potential. We have also spoken about the shortage of GPs in the State and how difficult it is for patients to get an appointment, but there are bureaucratic delays in the HSE that impede this. I will give an example. The Rowlagh medical centre in my area opened last year at the site of the old Rowlagh credit union building. This is something that I have been working on for a long time. The centre provides a range of health services, including GP services, in an area of high disadvantage. It wants to provide a GP medical card service. It sourced the GP, which is fantastic. It took some time to get him registered with the Irish Medical Council. This was finally resolved and now the centre is waiting for the general medical services, GMS, contract to be sorted out through the HSE. I am happy to announce that once this is approved, the Rowlagh medical centre could have the capacity to take more than 500 new medical card patients, which will be fantastic for my area.

There is also a shortage of public health nurses in Dublin Mid-West, in the Rossecourt resource centre in Lucan, the Lucan health centre, the Rathcoole health centre, the primary health centre in Clondalkin, and the Rowlagh health centre. Newborn babies' brains develop more in the first five years of their lives than at any other time. If children do not get the necessary developmental checks, something missed could have a lifelong impact on them. I have been getting the same answers from the HSE for the last two years, that there are recruitment and retention issues for the HSE getting public health nurses in the area. I want to know what is going to be done about that. Parents in Dublin Mid-West feel the burden of trying to spot any developmental challenges their baby is experiencing. Can you imagine the guilt parents feel if they fail to spot something? I want to be clear that the guilt is not on parents-----

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