Pauline Tully (Sinn Fein) | Oireachtas source

Every week, I am contacted by people either coming to see me or through emails and phone calls who are worried about their child because they have identified an additional need but no services are available for that child in the foreseeable future. I will give an example of one set of parents who contacted me last week about their son James, who is five years old and has just started school. He was referred for occupational therapy, OT, at a four-year check-up by his public health nurse because both the public health nurse and indeed the parents had concerns about his fine motor skills and gross motor skills, but he was refused access to OT and told that because he was already on the physiotherapy list, since, as a baby, he received physiotherapy for a totally unrelated issue, he had to go back to physiotherapy. The physiotherapy team said it would take him in and assess him, which it did, and it referred him to occupational therapy.

It was vital that the issues with his fine motor skills be addressed, as he was about to start school. In the meantime, he has started school and it has identified the issues too. While people at the school are very supportive, they are not therapists and do not have the knowledge or expertise to assist him to the extent that he needs. While doing the speech programme in school, he was identified as having a significant speech delay too.He had been referred to speech and language therapy by the age of two because he had not spoken at that stage. He waited two years for speech and language therapy and by the time he was accepted onto the list, he had started talking and they said he was fine and left him. Had they addressed the issues then, he would not have speech delay at this stage. Now, he is being referred back to speech and language therapy. The parents are most concerned about the need for occupational therapy. The occupational therapist came back to them and said she would accept him onto her list but it would be up to three years before he was seen. They actually cannot say that that is definite because it is dependent on resources, that is, staff. He will potentially be eight before he is seen by an occupational therapist. He will have missed out on so much in that time. The parents could pay privately but they cannot afford to. Even if they could, it is very difficult to access a therapist. Many people I know are getting into debt having to pay out the money for therapists that they should be receiving from the State.

Another little girl, Méabh, is almost three years old. She is deaf in one ear. She urgently requires speech and language therapy. She is on a waiting list for over a year. She was referred for speech and language therapy in September 2024. When I contacted primary care, I was told it would be early 2027. We are talking about two and half years in total that she will be waiting. Again, Méabh's parents cannot afford to pay privately but they say she requires the early intervention to prevent her from experiencing developmental delays. I looked at the lists in Cavan-Monaghan for the end of last year and there were 810 waiting for a first-time assessment with occupational therapy, and more than 500 of them had been on that list for over a year. Speech and language therapy was the longest list. There were 1,604 awaiting an initial assessment for speech and language in Cavan-Monaghan. That is not including initial therapy or those waiting for further therapy. The HSE has compiled extensive data on this. It knows there are extensive delays.

I know this relates to a different Department but the children's disability network teams, CDNTs, also have a huge waiting list for both assessment of need and for services and therapies. The staffing in Cavan CDNT was a huge issue of concern. It has improved and there are only a small number of vacancies, but there is a huge waiting list. Even with a full team complement, which it now has, I do not know how it is going to address all of those who have been on the waiting list since the time it did not. I am not even sure the team is actually big enough when it is fully filled to address the need that is there.