Ruairí Ó Murchú (Louth, Sinn Fein)

I welcome the fact that we are not talking about removing that one right parents have to the six months. I have no particular issue with looking at the best means of offering assessments and therapies - we have had that conversation before - but, as the Minister herself has stated, we have issues in the system itself as to where referrals are going onto the assessment of need list. I am back to the operation of the AON administrative hubs, the Cara's fund money and the use of private practitioners. Have we maxed out the number of private practitioners who are available or is there more capacity there? We are still looking at, as I said, 17,000 or 18,000, and at the end of the year I assume we will still be looking at 24,000 or 25,000 who will be over the six months in which they should have had an assessment. None of this is good enough. Obviously, there is frustration. When will we get a handle on this? We cannot just continue having this conversation.

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