Mary Seery Kearney (Fine Gael) | Oireachtas source

I will begin with the good news of today's announcement of funding and the significant change it will bring to the south inner city. I congratulate Dublin City Council on the applications it made and the creativity and innovation found within same. However, as much as I had intended to speak about that, I have just received a copy of letter that a parent received this morning about that parent's child, who was born in January 2018 and was exhibiting special needs, that is, autism. According to the letter, there will be a 40-month wait to access appointments for assessment for speech and language and occupational therapies.I am appalled.

At a meeting of the Oireachtas Joint Committee on Children, Disability, Equality and Integration earlier this week, we heard from the HSE about the children's disability network teams, how fantastic they are, the standard operating procedure that has been put in place and how it will be enveloped by services. This morning, in the same week, this parent received a letter stating that they will have to wait. In the next paragraph, it outlines how to make a complaint if the parent has a problem with waiting lists. There is an assumption of failure, therefore, and an anticipation of complaint in the very letter that welcomes that child to the care of the children's disability network team, which, quite frankly, it is appalling. Forty months is a massive length of time in a child's life. Two or three months at that age is a significant change in a child's development, not to mention 40 months, with all that is lost by that loss of opportunity. The Minister, Deputy O'Gorman, needs to appear before the House for a debate in order that we will be able to ask questions and to hear answers directly from him in that regard.