Evanne Ní Chuilinn (Fine Gael) | Oireachtas source

I raise something that is of importance and is quite worrying in my constituency of Dublin South-Central and, more specifically, in Crumlin where I live. There is a complete lack of developmental checks for babies and toddlers in my area. I had my third child three years ago. There was a difference between the developmental checks that child has not had at all compared with my older children, and even compared with my sister who had a baby at the same time in Kilkenny.

For those who are not aware, babies are supposed to get developmental checks immediately when they are born, within two weeks, within six weeks, quite regularly in the first six months and then all the way up until the age of three. I have a three-year-old who has never been looked at or checked. While I am not worried about anything myself, there is a whole community of people in the Crumlin, Kimmage and Walkinstown area who have never had developmental checks for their children.

Developmental checks check everything from dental, speech and language, gross motor skills, fine motor skills and movement. I mentioned early intervention for many other things like autism and additional needs that crop up in children a little bit older to the Minister of State, Deputy Hildegarde Naughton, yesterday. Much of that stuff can be checked and spotted by experts, and public health nurses are experts in that area. That is being missed in my area in Crumlin and in the wider south-central area in Dublin. We got a letter last year to say that, for the moment, it was suspended in the area and that, because there was an ageing population, the public health nurses had to focus on the older people. Obviously, these services should not be taken from older people to be given to young people, but we and the HSE need to look at the issue and try to reinstate, where possible, public health checks for under-threes and even as far as under-fives.