Catherine Ardagh (Fianna Fail) | Oireachtas source

I thank the Taoiseach for coming in to us today. It is great to have him in the Chamber. I just want to raise two big issues coming up to the budget. The first is disability and the hidden costs of disability. If someone has a child with a disability and he or she gets a diagnosis, there is a huge outlay in getting a private diagnosis because, as we all know, the assessment of needs system is not working. Then there is the huge cost of therapies because access to HSE therapies is pretty non-existent. There are 10,000 children waiting at the moment for therapies. As other colleagues have pointed out, we have a retention and recruitment crisis. Many children's disability network teams, CDNTs, around the city and the country are without the therapists they need. A lot of the Taoiseach's speech outlined child poverty. For one-parent families, having a child with a disability makes it even tougher. For the budget, I would like the Taoiseach to relay our concerns in relation to the cost of disability, especially looking at the core social welfare payments and domiciliary care payments for families with a child with a disability.I also ask for the issue of carers to be examined. There was a great debate in this House yesterday by the women's caucus in relation to family carers and getting rid of the means test for family caring. I hope something is done in the budget in relation to it. The second item is in relation to childcare. It needs a root and branch reform. We saw the people protesting outside Leinster House yesterday. We need to do a lot more than just throw money at the problem, we need a proper, publicly funded childcare model.