Marie Sherlock (Labour) | Oireachtas source

I thank the Minister of State, Deputy Rabbitte, for coming to the Chamber. My question this morning relates to the establishment of the assessment hub in CHO 9 on the north side of Dublin.

As the Minister of State is all too aware, when it comes to children with additional needs in this country, the word that appears in almost every single conversation is “wait”. There are waiting lists to be assessed, then there are waiting lists to access services and then they must wait for the education system and the health system to be joined up so that kids will not be left with a shocking wait for basic things like assistive technology.

Two years ago, on the north side of Dublin in CHO 9, some 2,824 children had been waiting for 12 months or longer for an initial contact from a disability service in the HSE. While there are efforts on the ground, that does not take away from the fact that a torturous wait remains for families and particularly children to be assessed, to get a diagnosis and to get treatment or a service.

My question today relates to the assessment of needs. At the end of the second quarter of this year, some 1,906 children had been waiting for at least six months or more for an assessment of need on the north side of Dublin in CHO 9. The vast majority of those 1,900 children were waiting way longer than those six months. The response from the Government has been to establish these assessment hubs, which is very welcome, as well as to rely on the private sector to deliver the assessments. Today, I ask for the details of how many staff will be in these assessment hubs and how precisely they will operate.

To my mind, staff are at the heart of the discussion on the waiting times. As we all know, there is a chronic shortage of therapists, psychologists and clinicians to provide services. The recurring theme on the ground at the moment, particularly within the HSE, is that many of these therapists and clinicians are voting with their feet. They cannot go on with the reality of the enormous waiting lists and they are moving into the private sector. This is because they cannot cope with the impact that this is having on the children who are at the centre of all this.

While subcontracting to the private sector is unfortunately a necessary action, one of the questions I have relates to the extent to which this is the long-term response to managing the very dramatic increase in requests for assessment of needs that has taken place over the last number of years. There is a real capacity issue within the private sector already. Anybody who is trying to access a private assessment at the moment knows that it is impossible to get on a waiting list, particularly here in Dublin. Those who get an assessment are scheduled well into the end of 2024 or indeed into 2025. Of course, at the heart of all this are the children and families who are waiting. They are dealing with the lost weeks, months and indeed years in which they have had no access to a service.

I am very conscious when speaking of the assessment of need for a service that it is not a legal requirement that one can access the CDNTs and primary care. That is important to say. Yet, we all know the reality on the ground. The shortage of services means that unless a child has an assessment of need and a diagnosis, they will not have a passport to open up the door to the services and therapies they desperately need to access. It is therefore crucially important that we get the assessment of need piece right to ensure children are properly diagnosed accordingly. I look forward to the Minister of State’s response.