Fiona O'Loughlin (Fianna Fail) | Oireachtas source

I support the Order of Business as outlined by the Leader.

First, I congratulate the Irish National Stud and Gardens, in my own county of Kildare, on being named in the top 10% of attractions in the world by Tripadvisor. For any Members who have not been there, I absolutely recommend it. It has a new horse experience which I visited and participated on. I will say "on" and leave the surprise for when people get to visit it. It is absolutely fantastic. It really is a wonderful place. I am thrilled for the staff and the management and I congratulate them.

In another good news story for County Kildare, I am delighted to see the sod being turned for the €200 million Diageo brewery. We had issues with planning etc., but thankfully we have got through all of them. It is a huge boost for the area and it is anticipated that the brewery will be operational by 2026. I have worked closely with the IDA and Kildare County Council on this. Those are two good news stories for Kildare this morning.

Yesterday, I got to meet Cara Darmody and her dad Mark, as I am sure many of my colleagues did as well. Cara and her dad raised the pertinent and important issue of assessment of needs. As we know, under the Disability Act 2005, the HSE is legally obliged to have a child's needs assessed within six months. I know from dealing with many constituents who are trying to get their child assessed that they simply cannot get it within six months. They are trying to get private appointments, which are hard to get and cost up to €2,000. It is simply not good enough. The HSE is constantly failing in its legal obligation to provide special needs services. It absolutely should reimburse parents who have to pay privately. I know the Minister of State, Deputy Rabbitte, has secured extra funding to enable assessment of needs through private providers, but that should be retrospective for families who were hard-pressed to be able to find the funds and had to borrow to do that. I call for a debate in the House on this.

The last thing I want to mention is maternity leave for Oireachtas Members. I have had a number of meetings with the Minister, Deputy O'Gorman on this. I am not happy that it has not progressed and I say that as chair of the women's caucus. We have a situation where Deputy Holly Cairns has announced her pregnancy, and we wish her very well with that, but we absolutely want to have that legislation in place for the next mandate for women who will be coming in. Along with that, we need paternity leave. The Minister did say we needed to have the maternity leave in place first, which I agree with, and then he could look at paternity leave. However, it is beyond time. We need to get it resolved.