Laura Harmon (Labour) | Oireachtas source

I welcome the Minister of State to the House. I am delighted to be the Labour Party's spokesperson on disability and further and higher education. I look forward to engaging with her constructively over the coming months and years.

This year will mark seven years since Ireland ratified the Convention on the Rights of Persons with Disabilities. Having now signed up to the optional protocol, considerable work remains to be done to deliver inclusive communities in this country. It is great to hear the Minister of State say a new national disability strategy will be launched soon. We also need to strengthen the National Disability Authority. All legislation and budgets should be disability- and equality-proofed. We need to strengthen and adequately fund the National Advocacy Service. Placing it on a statutory footing will be vital. We need to resource community and voluntary sector organisations with multi-annual funding and bring the terms and conditions of staff in section 39 bodies in line with the public service through pay parity and ring-fencing multi-annual funding for disabled persons' organisations to build capacity and self-advocacy.

Our population is growing and ageing. Disability services in our health and social care system must be resourced and equipped to meet the existing needs and respond to growing levels of acquired disability throughout the life cycle. There is a massive unmet demand for disability services as outlined under the disability capacity review and the commitments in the disability services action plan. Service improvements are constantly delayed due to a failure of workforce planning and underfunding of section 39 organisations. We need to address this. Recruitment and retention will be key.

Linked to the Minister of State's brief is the issue of school places, and we need an interdepartmental approach to that. At the minute, there are 100 children in Cork without school places for September, which is unacceptable. We hear this every year and children are travelling long distances for appropriate places. We need an autism guarantee to secure an appropriate school place for every child and to develop a fully inclusive model of education that vindicates the right to education for all children across the range of disabilities and complies with the UN conventions.There must be an expansion of the educational therapy support service through the NCSE to provide more in-school therapists. We need better training for teachers during their degree courses. Investment is needed in child-centred SNA provision. We must value SNAs, remove the 72-hour obligation and provide training to QQI level 6 equivalent. We need more interdepartmental collaboration in this regard. The Government must undertake an autism audit of all schools and provide continuing professional development, CPD, training on autism to school staff.

This week, we found out from HSE south west that, unfortunately, the average waiting time for an autism assessment through primary care services in Cork is 30 months. That is quite shocking. Children with complex needs in the Cork and south west region cannot access the disability services they need, with waiting times currently at 11.75 months, which is nearly one year. The delay is not just unacceptable; it is damaging. Early intervention is absolutely critical. It is during the early developmental years that timely supports can have the most meaningful impact. These delays not only risk children missing out on vital services but also jeopardise their chances of securing appropriate school places down the line.

There have been widespread delays and backlogs in service provision, with the HSE often failing to meet the legal timelines. This has led to legal challenges and investigations by bodies such as the Ombudsman for Children. We are failing these children at a time when we could intervene and change the course of their lives. I urge the Minister of State to work with her Cabinet colleagues on this issue. It is great to hear her speaking about recruitment to CDNTs, filling vacancies and further action in that regard.

On housing, we must fully implement and resource the national housing strategy for disabled people, including the provision of funding for technical advisers in local authorities, ring-fencing at least 10% of social and affordable housing for people with disabilities, providing universal design standards, ensuring homes are fully wheelchair accessible where necessary and reforming the Part M building regulations to require wheelchair-liveable housing. Provision of housing is a key area in terms of joined-up thinking.

I am glad the Minister of State mentioned public transport in the context of accessibility. We need to expand the Dublin Bus travel assistance scheme nationally to support people learning to travel independently. We must ensure all public transport services are wheelchair accessible.

Regarding education and employment, we need to provide more training places for healthcare staff but we also must ensure we keep them in the country once they have graduated. That is key. We need more support and access routes to education and employment for people with disabilities. We must invest more in such pathways, including by way of additional resources for the disability access route to education. There is a lot of work to be done. It was mentioned that Ireland had the lowest employment rate in Europe for people with disabilities. We are very much a laggard in this respect. We must support people into the workforce, support them to remain there and meet our public sector recruitment target of 6%.

I thank the Minister of State for being here. I look forward to her reply.