Marie Sherlock (Labour) | Oireachtas source

I too want to support Senator Gavan's call for a debate on the level of the national minimum wage. Yesterday in the Dáil, Labour Party Deputies brought forward a motion highlighting the appalling situation of children with additional needs being left to wait for years for an assessment of need. As we all know, getting an assessment is one thing but trying to access the services can be an enormous struggle. The situation on the north side of Dublin in the community healthcare organisation, CHO, 9 area is the worst in the country, with 2,428 children waiting 12 months or longer for an initial contact. I know progress is being made and it is important to acknowledge that, particularly in the inner city with the City Connects programme, but we need to see some much more of this type of initiative. Yesterday was an example of politics working well involving the inspirational campaigner, Cara Darmody, my Labour Party colleagues and, to be fair, a Minister and a Minister of State. The Minister, Deputy O'Gorman, and the Minister of State, Deputy Rabbitte, have put commitments in place that if by 1 August we do not have the six regional hubs for these assessments, which are vital for children, there will be funding in the budget. The solutions are far from perfect. Contracting to the private sector for the assessments, for example, is not ideal. I know that on the north side of Dublin it is nearly impossible to get on a waiting list for a private assessment, let alone the public list, where there is a wait of two to three years. Weeks and months are vital in a young child's life and we cannot wait. If there is any spare capacity, it has to be used.

We cannot take our eye off the ball on the issue of recruiting and retaining psychologists, occupational therapists, speech and language therapists, physiotherapists and all who work within the children's disability network teams, CDNTs. Our health and education systems have to get smart about they operate. Let me tell you the story of Tristan, who is autistic and has been attending services for years. With the support of his parents, he is due to go to secondary school in September. This is a fantastic achievement for him but it was not without much heartache and stress in trying to find that place. His parents spent most of last year trying to secure this. The family now faces a fresh hurdle. That is the very basic ask of securing assistive technology for Tristan. We have a crazy situation whereby in order to get assistive technology within the school system, there has to be a report from within the CDNT by an occupational therapist, who in turn sends the report to the special educational needs organiser, who in turn sends it to the Department of Education. As the local CDNT does not have the resources or the wherewithal to produce that report, Tristan is being prevented from securing the assistive technology he was getting when he was in primary school. I know the National Council for Special Education has said that it is looking to move to a system where it will grant funds to schools as opposed to individuals. We need to get smart about how our system operates, particularly with the resourcing issue.