Paul Gavan (Sinn Fein) | Oireachtas source

I welcome the Minister of State and our colleagues from AsIAm. I acknowledge the tremendous work of all members of the committee and especially Senator Carrigy, who has done a brilliant job on the report, its recommendations and building that all-party consensus, which is really important. Ultimately, we get the most effective change when we build the biggest, broadest possible coalition for change.

I was following the debate from my office until recently and was struck by a number of Senators' contributions, to which I will refer over my contribution. I was particularly struck by Senator Clonan's point that we are 30 years behind the rest of Europe in regard to these services. It had not occurred to me that most of us will be disabled at some point in our lives. That is a sobering point, and when we think about it, it is, unfortunately, true. We really need to take that on board, not least politically.

I acknowledge the work of the Minister of State in this area. As others have said, I have no doubt about her commitment to making changes. Having said that, the situation is just not good and has not been for many years. In fairness, that has been pointed out from people from across the Chamber. In August, the Minister of State published her autism innovation strategy, an important step. It was recommended by the report and must be welcomed but, from our perspective, Sinn Féin would argue the strategy does not really address the urgent needs of families. A number of Senators have pointed out some of these issues. More than 10,000 children are waiting for an assessment of need and 110,000 are awaiting essential therapies. Those figures are entirely unacceptable and clearly show that much more needs to be done.

Other Senators referred to the issues of children without a school place. I understand there were more than 120 such children at the beginning of September, while many more are forced to do a third year in the early childhood care and education programme or in autism spectrum disorder preschools. Children with special needs often require tailored support and inclusive environments to thrive academically, socially and emotionally. The longer they are left without a school place, the further they will fall behind their peers, not only academically but also in their overall development. The absence of suitable school placements when children need them creates long-term consequences for their development. We cannot allow this crisis to escalate further. It is unfair on families and our children. Of course, this is not a new phenomenon. It has been happening for years, yet the Government has consistently failed families by failing to act. As a number of Deputies noted during the recent Dáil discussions on this topic, advance planning is the key to this. We know before children enter national school that they are in the pipeline and that there will need to be school places for them, yet, consistently, unfortunately, that advance planning is not happening. Therefore, getting school places becomes a huge ordeal for parents and their children.

On the issue of key staffing, Senator Joe O'Reilly made some very valid points. The statistics are frightening. Children's disability network teams have an average vacancy rate for therapists of more than 30% nationally. This rises to 40% for occupational therapists and 70% for dieticians and play therapists, while Chamber House in Dublin 24 and St. Columba’s in Crumlin, Dublin, have vacancy rates of 50% and 60%, respectively. By any standards, that tells us all these services are in crisis. It is absolutely shocking and points to fundamental issues with how these people are employed and with their terms and conditions because there is clearly an issue with staff turnover, in particular. That, too, needs to be tackled. It is not simple to do so but without it, we will constantly lurch from crisis to crisis. Indeed, perhaps the most startling statistic, when I was researching this topic, was that there is currently a six-year waiting list for the CDNT in Dublin. That is 72 months. That is failure at a level that is catastrophic for the children and, indeed, the parents involved. There is an awful lot more to be done.

I was going to make a number of points contrasting Sinn Féin's proposed budget with the Government's budget. I do not really want to get into that, because I do not want to be overly party political on this issue and I want to acknowledge the work everyone is doing on this, but the Government continues to announce overall figures that appear reasonable but lack detailed breakdowns.Specifically, there is no clarity on how much funding is allocated to existing levels of service versus new measures or how much is designated for capital projects versus current funding. The Government's budget provided one-off measures, as if that would make a difference. Disability is not a one-off and it cannot be tackled with one-off payments alone.

Overall, it has been a really worthwhile debate and I pay tribute to Senator Carrigy and all the members of the committee who did such excellent work.