2025-12-09

I welcome the Minister for Children, Disability and Equality, Deputy Norma Foley.

I move: That Dáil Éireann: recalls: — that children are legally entitled to an assessment of their health and education needs under the Disability Act 2005, and that the assessment must take place within six months; and — the motion regarding Assessment of Need passed by this House in May 2025; notes: — that the law is still being broken with respect to the 18,097 children whose Assessment of Need is now overdue, and with just 4,534 assessments conducted in the first three quarters of this year the number of children being failed is rising every quarter; and — the achievements won by Cara Darmody due to her dedicated campaigning for increased access to Assessments of Needs; condemns: — the failure of the Government to stop breaking the law and to comply with its legal obligations to provide assessments within six months; and calls on the Government to: — set a specific target date by which the Government aims to comply with the legal entitlement to an Assessment of Need under the Disability Act 2005; — implement an emergency action plan to clear the backlog and provide these children with the assessments to which they are legally entitled; — deliver a longer-term sustainable solution, including an urgent workforce plan to recruit, train and retain enough staff to finally end this breach of children's rights once and for all; — fund special needs services including speech and language, physio, and occupational and behavioural therapies; and — provide appropriate school places for children with special needs. This morning, 15-year-old disability rights campaigner Cara Darmody began another 50 hour sit-out protest at the gates of the Dáil. She will sleep in a tent on Kildare Street tonight and tomorrow night in awful weather to force the Minister, Deputy Foley's Government to take real action to end the scandal of children waiting and waiting for their assessment of need. When Cara staged her last 50-hour protest back in May there were more than 15,000 children waiting. Seven months on, there are 18,097 children whose assessment of need is overdue. The HSE expects that list to reach 25,000. That is scandalous. I do not know what words the Minister would choose to describe the dreadful situation but I describe it as a national emergency. How else could one possibly describe a situation in which tens of thousands of vulnerable children, children with special needs, are denied vital help and education assessments? These are assessments that determine the treatments, the therapies and the services they will need to overcome barriers, to support their development, to determine their educational pathways and to enable them to live full lives and reach their potential. In every one of those cases the Government is breaking the law. It is breaking the law 18,097 times. Under the 2005 Disability Act, there is a legal requirement on the Government to provide a child with an assessment of need within six months but children are waiting an average of 27 months, more than four times what is required by law. Cara herself wrote that if someone asked her to find a location in Ireland where 100% of the people present were breaking the law, then she would go to the Taoiseach’s Department on a Tuesday morning for the Cabinet meeting. This has dire consequences for these children. Early intervention is key and that is why the six-month rule exists. Every day a child waits for their assessment is a delay in their development. Any parent of a child with additional needs will tell the Minister that every day makes a difference. Cara has met with three taoisigh over the past number of years, including Micheál Martin and Simon Harris. They all promised to tackle the crisis and every time the crisis only got worse. The Tánaiste last met with Cara in September. He assured her that the Government was committed to timely assessment of need but since that meeting, the waiting list has actually increased by over 1,000 children. The big question is: when will the Government stop breaking the law? We have yet to see a detailed plan setting out how the Government will comply with the legislation and deliver a comprehensive assessment of need within the six-month statutory timeframe. The Government announced reforms of the process today and we need to carefully study these proposals because the detail matters, especially for children and families already facing long delays. We have been here before. In 2020 the Government cynically chose to introduce a short-cut assessment process. Two years later, the High Court ruled this short-cut was illegal and in breach of children's rights. Year after year families of children waiting for an assessment of need have listened to big promises from the Government, promises that have been broken over and over. That has to stop now. It is time for the Government to deliver and that is what tonight's motion from the combined Opposition calls for. It calls for setting a date by which the Government will comply with the legal entitlement to an assessment of need within six months. It calls for implementation of an emergency action plan to keep clear the backlog. It also calls for the delivery of an ambitious workforce plan to train, recruit and retain enough staff needed, funding of special needs' services and therapies, and the provision of appropriate school places for children with special needs. It should not take a 15-year-old child to do the heavy lifting. It should not take a 15-year-old child constantly banging on the door of the Government for it to wake up and do what is needed in a national crisis. These children have had enough of the go-slow from Government, enough of the run-around, enough of the jaded excuses and the shortcuts. This is not going to cut it anymore. Tonight must be a watershed moment, a moment to turn the page. It is time for the Government to do its job and deliver for these children.

I have attended dozens of meetings with parents of children with disabilities throughout the State. They are heartbreaking meetings because the parents are trying to do their best for their children. It strikes me that what really drives them mad, and I do not blame them at all, is hearing the Government say you do not really need an assessment to access services and you can access services without an assessment. Most of the parents I meet at these meetings do not get services. The services are almost non-existent. They are stuck on waiting lists for speech and language therapy or occupational therapy. Even for those children who get access to some services, it is patchy and only a fraction of what is actually needed for those children. All of that is really a distraction from the Government's failure, because the purpose of the original Act was to do two things. First, it was to have a robust assessment of need process that could determine the health and educational needs of each and every child and then allow the Government to plan to provide the services, which most children do not get. They go hand-in-glove. As Deputy Doherty said, because the Government could not do both, it tried to circumvent the assessment of need process, to come up with a yellow-pack downgraded version, called a preliminary teams assessment. The Government was caught out and parents brought it to the High Court. The Government broke the law and has been breaking the law ever since. I will carry out a careful, critical review of what was announced today. I want to see the detail of it. I want to know what these assessment officers will actually do. I do not want to see this in any way as gatekeeping. We cannot substitute informal processes for what is a statutory right. That is what Cara Darmody is standing up for. Parents want the Government to deliver on its legal obligations but, as important or more important, to deliver on the health and education rights of every child.

I acknowledge the men, women and children with disabilities who came to Leinster House earlier today in the midst of a storm. They came here to send a clear message to the Government that they are now choosing between eating and heating their homes. We heard from people who are deciding how many bars of gas they could turn on and how many more trips they can make to the food bank in a week. What a shame. What an incredible situation for a rich country in 2025, to have people in their wheelchairs travelling to Dublin today because they are struggling so hard this winter. That says a lot about this Government and its priorities. The people who were here today actually said they felt they were used during the general election, when disability was to be a priority. It has been shown once again not to be a priority. In terms of the assessments of need, the Minister's statement today mentioned new teams and new expert staff, but where are the therapists? That is the actual issue. In my own constituency there are 13 vacancies in the CDNTs 8 and 9, with 11 vacancies in speech and language, occupational therapy and psychology in primary care across Roscommon and Galway. We need the therapists. Without them we will not be able to achieve the six-month obligation for children in terms of assessment of need. However, we do not have the therapists. That is the issue in terms of workforce planning. That is the issue that needs to be looked at, whether it is CORU registration for those who qualified outside the State and come back, or whether it is the numbers coming through our colleges. That is the real nub of the issue and it is not being addressed in what was announced today.

Earlier today, I, along with others, had the pleasure of meeting with Cara Darmody. Despite her young age, Cara is an advocate and a champion of those with disabilities, not just her own family. She has one major demand and that is for the Government to comply with the legal obligation to ensure that all children receive an assessment of need within six months. She has been here before and, because of the failure, to deliver she is back again, compelled to do a second sleep-out for 50 hours outside the gates of Leinster House. It is incredible that a child is doing that in the weather we have at the moment. We should all, particularly those on the Government benches, be ashamed that this child has felt the need to undertake such a protest for a second time. It is shameful that the State continues to fail children when it comes to their rights under the Disability Act. It is shameful that not only has Cara had to embark on such a protest again but that the number waiting for an assessment of need has risen to over 18,000. A commitment to increase recruitment has not been followed through on. That is what prompted Cara to commence another protest. Those who live with a disability have been let down by this Government. The recent budget provided no support in the face of a rising cost-of-living crisis. It has failed to honour legal obligations on assessment of need. In every aspect, it has failed. When we discuss these figures, one can lose sight of why an early assessment is so important. An early assessment allows the family to plan the support that a child with a diagnosis needs. It allows for the necessary supports to be applied for. When children must wait beyond the legally required six months it impacts their development, their potential to live a positive life, to receive the right supports within the education system and to have the best opportunity to develop and thrive as all children should be allowed to do. The legal requirement is that an assessment be provided within six months. Failure to do so is a breach of the law, yet that is what the Government continues to do. The public should be under no illusion that the Government is just missing the targets or hitting the crossbar. The average wait time for an assessment of need is 27 months. Children are waiting two and a quarter years for an assessment of need in some places. That is a shameful failure. In Limerick, 259 children are waiting for an assessment of need. As in other areas, not one child of those 259 has had an assessment completed within the statutory six months. Throughout the State, nine out of every ten children are not having their assessments completed on time. Campaigners such as 15-year-old Cara should not have to undertake such protests to have this failure addressed. It is high time the Government committed to and delivered on making emergency funding available. It is high time it committed to a timeframe for meeting the legal obligation to provide an assessment within six months, as is the law. It should need to demonstrate how it is going to recruit and retain staff for disability services. We have been in this Chamber before, urging the Government to act. Cara has been here before, urging the Government to act. We have detailed steps that the Government must take if it is serious about living up to its legal and moral obligations to these children. Without a change in approach, waiting lists will continue to skyrocket, children will continue to be denied the essential education they deserve and are entitled to. Enough is enough. Please commit to emergency funding today.

One of the most shameful legacies of Fianna Fáil and Fine Gael in government has been the services denied to children with disabilities throughout the State. We are back here tonight with what in many respects is a unique motion before the House. It is unique in a number of ways. It is unique in that it is signed by the entire Opposition. Every party of Opposition has joined in this call on the Government. The motion simply and uniquely sets out what the law is - that children are legally entitled to an assessment of their health and education needs under the Disability Act. Most unique of all, it is asking the Government to stop breaking the law. This is amazing in so many respects. The Opposition is coming to the House to ask the Government of Ireland to stop breaking the law in respect of the most vulnerable children in our society. The motion calls on Government to remedy the fact that this breach of law is now impacting on more than 18,000 children and that those numbers are likely to grow because of the ongoing failure to live up to previous commitments. The motion is certainly different in that it points to one 15-year-old girl who, on many occasions, has forced the State and various Ministers to make commitments. The difficulty, of course, is that those commitments have been broken time and time again. The real impact of a failure to carry out assessments of need is felt for lifetimes. There are children, teenagers now - in fact, there are now adults - who could and should be in much better situations had their rights been vindicated and upheld and the Government obeyed its own laws. I have seen children who managed to access services in a timely manner and got the right therapies at the right time. I have seen the differences that made in allowing them to live full lives. I have seen other children in my constituency who were denied those opportunities, robbed from them by the Government. We need to get assessments of need right but we also need to ensure that therapies and services are actually delivered to children consistently throughout the State. How is it we have children still waiting over 12 months for basic therapies and services we know they need? Why are there such discrepancies across counties? The CDNTs in counties Monaghan and Cavan are the ones I deal with directly. The service in County Monaghan is criticised by a lot of families but there are no children waiting over 12 months, whereas in Cavan there are 207. Almost every child on the waiting list has been waiting for over 12 months. When you try to get the detail and ask questions about the waiting times for physiotherapy, occupational therapy and speech and language therapy we are told waiting lists are not compiled for single disciplines within CDNTs anymore. Why is that? What is Government trying to hide? Why is it when you get into the nuts and bolts of the services that are not being provided the CDNTs are not honest. I asked in respect of a constituent of mine who is young child who is in desperate need. His parents were telling me he has not been able to access speech and language therapy, occupational therapy or physiotherapy. I got given a list of dates on which the CDNT told me services were provided. Then I read the small print which said the above appointments were a mixture of one-to-ones, telehealth and parent training. The Minister should train staff to conduct these services because right across my constituency families are living in poverty because they are going private. They are spending funds that will not be reimbursed because families know that if they do not spend them, their children are going to be denied their opportunity to fulfil their potential in future. It is not good enough and the Minister must finally heed the message that the Government must stop breaking the law.

That is the message. The Government must stop breaking the law. It is a terrible indictment of this State and the entire system that we are reliant on 15-year-old Cara Darmody to hold this State's feet to the flames. I have often said there is always an element of failure when people have to come to politicians in order to vindicate their rights but in this case we have a young advocate who has been given no choice because of the failure that has been shown to her family and many other families. I agree with Deputy Kerrane that it is vital we show our solidarity to those from the Irish Wheelchair Association and other groups who made the absolutely necessary point today that those with disabilities, who were promised so much before the election, have been failed so miserably. In previous budgets they felt they were being seen for who they were and the cost of disability was being recognised. They were given that payment and then it was taken from them. The promise was that the Government would look at this, analyse it, review it and then look at it next year. What about this year? What about this year for all those who cannot afford to live in this world? We talk about providing them with rights and providing our citizens with the same rights as everyone else but we have failed miserably and it is a deep shame. I do not know how many times we can be back here talking about assessment of need. We all have our parliamentary questions. The answer is 18,097 are waiting beyond six months for an assessment of need and the figure is heading towards 24,000 to 25,000. There is a backlog that needs to be dealt with. There is no point in us constantly being in here and hearing about assessment hubs being put together when we do not see this figure moving. I accept there are more children on the assessment of need list than there had been previously because in the past people were put on primary care lists and were able to get services but those services are not there anymore, meaning they have no choice. The system is putting people on the assessment of need list. We all accept the best-case scenario is you are assessed in relation to what your needs are and then that your needs are delivered upon. There were considerable promises made today and we engaged previously on this but, as Deputy Cullinane said, the biggest gripe an awful lot of parents have is being told you do not need the assessment of need to receive therapies. One of the promises was that the issue of requiring an assessment of need for an appropriate school place was going to be resolved but it is not resolved yet. The Minister should tell me how that happens. We all know the issue that exists. I have no problem if a parent makes the determination they have a decent and proper means of being assessed for autism and then they can get proper therapies. I have absolutely no issue with that, if they decide and their rights are not removed in relation to AON. However, it is not promises they need. They need to see a roadmap. I do not know how many times we have been in here and have talked about a single point of access because the other thing parents give out about is the fact you have no one to go to. They end up becoming advocates themselves. They end up becoming outlier advocates and none of this is good enough. We need to make sure we do the workforce planning and take the emergency action to clear these backlogs and we need the Government to stop breaking the law.

I ask the House to note I am not opposing the motion and I welcome the opportunity to debate this important issue. The Opposition put forward a similar motion in May of this year which we, as a Government, did not oppose either. This Government has continued to progress key measures to access assessments of need as well as therapies since that motion went unopposed and I welcome this opportunity for further debate. I also wish to take this opportunity to acknowledge the commitment and passion of Cara Darmody, who is accompanied by her father, Mark. I have met Cara on a number of occasions and I absolutely accept she is so passionate in her advocacy. I take the opportunity to reassure Cara, and all families waiting for an assessment of need, that the Government recognises and shares the concerns expressed through this motion. I know families have been enduring incredible stress and unacceptable delays in receiving AON reports and some existing AONs are taking up to 30 hours to complete, which is far too long. This is why this morning Cabinet approved the publication of the general scheme of the disability (amendment) Bill 2025 to bring in a faster and more efficient way of carrying out AON reports. In 2026 the HSE will set up and roll out 11 expert teams with four staff on each, including a psychologist, a speech and language therapist, an occupational therapist and an administrator. This will help to speed up the process because assessment officers will have the expert help they need at an earlier stage. There will be improved training for staff involved in the delivery of assessments of need and ensuring that assessment officers and liaison officers have sufficient administrative supports so they can focus on the production of assessment reports and service statements for children. We are all aware there has been substantial growth in the number of assessment of need applications in recent years. They increased from 2,500 in 2008 when the AON process began to 10,000 last year and over 12,000 applications are anticipated by the end of this year. By the end of September of this year, there were over 18,000 applications overdue for completion nationwide, which is 42% increase on this time last year. I am more than conscious that behind these numbers are children and families facing their own challenges every single day and relying on the State to help and support them. We want the AON process to be faster so therapists are freed up to provide therapy rather than writing endless reports. HSE clinical staff are spending up to one third of their time completing assessments for the AON process. The more time they spend on the completion of clinical assessments under the Act, the less time they have for the therapy interventions children need. It is a vicious circle and one the Government is determined to break. When clinicians were consulted about this by the national clinical programme for people with disabilities, they spoke about their "moral dilemma" in prioritising AON reports over children on CDNT waiting lists. We need therapists to be therapists and this reform is designed to achieve that. The targeted legislative reform of the Disability Act aims to improve the effectiveness and efficiency of the assessment of need process so children and families receive their assessment of need reports within the statutory timeframe. I want to be very clear the proposed legislation will not affect individuals’ statutory right to an assessment of need or change the time frames set out in the Act. The general scheme will be submitted to the Oireachtas Joint Committee on Disability Matters for pre-legislative scrutiny as soon as possible and will then progress through the Houses. I have no doubt it will be subject to much debate, which I welcome. We owe it to the children and families who affected by delays in the assessment of need process to make sure there is a system in place that works. The legislative reform will build on the work undertaken by the Department and the HSE to date in addressing the increasing demand for assessments of need. In 2024, over 4,100 assessments were completed, a welcome increase of 30% over the previous year. Recent HSE data shows that this upward trend is continuing, with over 4,500 assessments completed in the first nine months of this year, a 57% increase compared to the same period last year. This reflects the priority given by the Department and the HSE to address the backlog of applications. It is essential that we maintain this momentum and accelerate it. I know there have been calls to use more private therapists to tackle the AON backlog. Since May 2024, we have funded a targeted waiting list initiative where the HSE procures clinical assessments from approved private providers for those families who have been waiting the longest. There have been 6,300 clinical assessments commissioned from private providers for AON since June 2024 and there is €20 million in budget 2026 to pay for 6,000 more. However, we have to reform the system to tackle the root of the problem. If we rely on more and more private reports, it is not fixing the AON system. It is like pouring water into a bucket with a hole in the bottom of it or, as a person said to me earlier, it is like adding another lane to the M50. We cannot rely on the private sector indefinitely. We must ensure that the public system can meet the clearly growing demand. The Department will continue to prioritise actions to improve the capacity and effectiveness of the assessment of need system. However, there also needs to be a recognition that assessment of need sits within a wider system that has multiple challenges. Much more is required, beyond even the legislation that the Cabinet approved today. For example, autism was noted as the category of disability in 45% of all completed assessments of need in the first nine months of this year. We know that accessing assessments is a significant concern for parents in order that the services necessary to support their children can be identified as early as possible. There will be a new autism assessment process by the HSE next February, and it will be staffed by psychologists. This will provide a more consistent and efficient approach to autism assessments and establish a clearer pathway to children and their families on how to access these assessments within the healthcare system. It is important to stress, and has already been pointed out, that children do not require an assessment of need report to access health services. However, I know that many families feel they have no choice other than to rely on the assessment of need. They are faced with long waiting lists for services or cannot access the assessments they want for their children. With this in mind, there will be a new single point of access system from the HSE. This will be rolled out across the country to make it easier for families to be referred to the right service, whether that is a children’s disability network team, primary care or the child and adolescent mental health services. As a result, children will not be put on multiple waiting lists or passed from one service to another. Another important development is the new process on the way in education for admission to special classes and special schools. The Department is working to ensure that an assessment of need will not be required to access special classes or special schools. All of these changes will give families a faster way of getting the services they need for their children, rather than just relying on the AON process. The Department of Education and Youth is putting in place an education therapy service. This new service will commence in special schools with the intention that, over time, it will expand to schools with special classes and mainstream schools. It will complement existing therapeutic services provided by the HSE. The reform of the assessment of need process will only be effective if waiting lists for children’s services are reduced at the same time. It is no use having children move quickly through the assessment of need process only to join long waiting lists for services and therapeutic supports. An intensive focus by my Department on increasing the staffing of children’s disability network teams has seen a 26% increase in children’s disability network team staffing levels, notwithstanding the issue of vacancies, which I appreciate. There is funding for a further 150 staff for children’s disability network teams in budget 2026 to reduce waiting times further. There are a total of 460 new training places for the health and social care professions coming on stream to increase the pipeline of therapists to support the sustained growth of children’s disability network teams. That includes 310 new training places this year and a further 130 next year. As I have outlined, there are many actions required to reform the AON process. It is not fit for purpose as it stands, and I believe we all agree on that. I have personally described it as a broken system and, again, I believe we agree on that across the House. However, we in government are determined to fix it. The Minister of State, Deputy Higgins, and I are committed to working with our colleagues in government to take all the necessary actions, legislative and non-legislative, to improve the AON process for the people who matter most, the children and their families.

Yet again, we hear that the Government is not opposing the motion. We have heard it before. No matter how many times Sinn Féin and the combined Opposition bring forward motions, no matter how many days of school are missed by Cara Darmody, who is literally weathering a storm outside the gates of this House tonight, the Government still does not get the message and is still breaking the law. We are in a crisis in the disability services. In my own area of Kildare South, nearly 2,000 children are waiting, a figure that has risen 7% since the summer. No children in Kildare have their assessments of need completed on time. The average waiting time is a shameful 27 months, and the list is getting longer every quarter. We know that the AON is only the beginning. Once it is completed, the long and painful battle for therapy starts. In south Kildare, we have an ineffectual CDNT that is simply unable to meet the needs. Due to failed policy, families who are already put to the pin of their collars are forced to pay thousands of euro for private therapies that should be a given. In primary care, waiting times for psychology are staggering. Children will have grown up before they even get an appointment. Across the State, far too many children are still without an appropriate school place. The system is utterly broken, yet we are still operating as if it is business as usual. We are in a crisis. When will the Government start acting like it? Where is the emergency action? We have qualified therapists in the State today, people who are ready and willing to practice, but the Minister will not fast-track their entry into the system. Disabled children and their families are being treated with utter disregard. This has to change. Ní chuirfidh muid i Sinn Féin suas leis seo. Tá an rún atá os ár gcomhair soiléir. Teastaíonn infheistíocht radacach agus plean uaillmhianach chun fórsa saothair dhóthanaigh a sholáthar ar bhonn práinneach. Cuirimis an scéal seo i gceart. Tá sé de dhíth ar na gasúir atá ag fanacht.

Why must families in the State fight for everything? Why can children with additional needs and special needs not get what they need? Why can they not get what they are entitled to? They are children of this State. This is a fundamental human right - a right to education, a right to healthcare, and a right to be treated with respect and dignity. I have been coming in here for the last six years, listening to the Government telling me what it is doing. Why was this plan that it announced today not announced six, nine or 12 months ago? I have listened to plan after plan here. There is a child outside the door, Cara Darmody. That is what she is - a 15-year-old child, shaming this Government into doing something for children with additional needs and special needs. A child is standing up to the Government because the Government will not listen to the Opposition, will not listen to parents and will not listen to children who badly need an assessment of need. It is one single girl, standing outside the door, and we can see the shame that she brings on Fianna Fáil and Fine Gael. I am so proud of her. I am so proud of her family. She is taking this on for so many other people. I have been outside that door with parents who are looking for special school places, school transport for their children or special needs assistants for their children in school. Why must everything be a fight? Why can the Government not show respect? In Cork, 8% - less than one in ten - got their assessment within the time. There are now 1,500 children over the limit between Cork and Kerry. Six months is the legal requirement and the statutory obligation. The Government is breaking that because 27 months is the average time. This is a scandal. Enough is enough. These children must be protected and must be looked after.

Hear, hear.

This time last year I was still teaching special education, something I have done for many of my 34 years working as a primary school teacher. I have never seen the crisis of assessment of need as bad as it is at present, so much so that the inspirational 15-year-old Cara Darmody has felt forced to sleep outside the gates of this House once again on such a horrible winter's evening. In County Wicklow, which is in the CHO 6 area, we have been faced with massive numbers of children waiting for over a year to have the first contact. Figures show there were as many as 1,000 children in this category this time last year. While it was welcome news that Scoil Phádraig in Avoca has had a special class sanctioned this year, nevertheless when the county is combined with the Kildare-west Wicklow health area, the total number of children who are waiting for an assessment of need reaches a staggering 2,314. That is absolutely incredible. In County Wexford, a massive 46% of children who received an assessment of need this year were assessed outside of the legally required six-month timeframe, as outlined in the Disability Act 2005. It is the same story from Barndarrig right down to Ballindaggan, from Knockananna to Kilmuckridge, Arklow, Gorey, Carnew, Ferns and all the other villages in between where parents have contacted us from. A whole generation of young children have been failed by Fianna Fáil and Fine Gael, so this has to change.

I, too, want to commend the achievements of Cara Darmody due to her dedicated campaigning for increased access to assessment of need. It is absolutely shameful that she is outside the gates pleading with the Government to do what it knows it needs to do, on one of the worst nights of the year. Not one child in Mayo has had their assessment of need completed within the legal timeframe so far this year. That is 0%. There are 291 children in the county waiting for an assessment of need. This is absolutely shameful. Children and families are being failed dramatically and are being left in limbo, waiting for supports they desperately need. The Government is not only failing these children and their families; it is breaking the law. Without a change in approach, waiting lists will continue to skyrocket. Children will continue to be denied the essential education they deserve and are entitled to. Every child has a right to an education. Emergency funding must be made available. Tonight the Government must not only not oppose this motion, it must make an honest commitment to the specific timeframe in which it will meet its legal obligations. A real and immediate workforce plan must be implemented to train, recruit and retain staff. That must be done right across the island. We need to have an all-island approach to the recruitment of staff and the recognition of qualifications. Adequate funding for special needs services, including the provision of appropriate school places for children with additional needs, must be made available. The pathway to what we are talking about here tonight has been paved with broken promises. Whatever happened to us cherishing all of the children equally? It is shameful that we are in one of the richest countries in the world and parents in my constituency of Mayo and around this country look at their child, at their children, day after day, knowing the therapies they desperately need will impact them right throughout the rest of their lives.

More than 150 children in Waterford are still waiting for an assessment of need and some have been left waiting for over two years. The Minister does not need me to tell her that is illegal. The law is explicit - children must receive an assessment within six months. This Government is routinely breaking the law and is breaking the law when it comes to children's rights. Across the State, 18,097 children are overdue an assessment. Cara Darmody, who is just 15-years-old, is undertaking her second 50-hour sleepout on Kildare Street to shame Fine Gael and Fianna Fáil into action because that is what it takes. The Government must do all it can to expedite the recruitment of clinicians to bring this failure to an end. Tá os cionn 150 páiste i bPort Láirge fós gan mheasúnú riachtanais agus tá 18,000 páiste eile ar fud na tíre thar an teorainn chuí. Tá teaghlaigh ag streachailt gan tacaíocht. Ní leor gealltanais bhuiséid gan fhoireann cheart a bheith i láthair. Tá cearta leanaí á sárú agus tá gníomh práinneach ag teastáil chun an córas a chur ina cheart. The pattern here is unmistakable as well. Parents are expected to absorb costs, chase private services, or simply wait indefinitely. Budget 2026 set aside €20 million, again thanks to Cara Darmody and her efforts to shame the Government into action, but without recruiting the therapists and without taking any meaningful action to fill that gap the figures will not translate into shorting waiting times for any family. The Government has not addressed the workforce gap and children are paying the price. The failure in this aspect of children's services extends across other children's services. Young people are living through painful years as they wait for scoliosis procedures. Special school and autism class places remain insufficient, despite repeated warnings. CAMHS continues to struggle. Child homelessness is rising. Tusla is in free fall. Child poverty targets have been missed year-on-year and Fianna Fáil's solution to that is to change the targets. The Government must stop failing children. It must stop failing families. Listen to Cara Darmody. Do the right thing. Stop failing children and stop breaking the law.

This is a very important moment for this House. It is not every day we see all Opposition parties co-sign a motion and I thank Sinn Féin for using its time tonight to bring this forward. It is such an important conversation we will have here tonight. I am pleased to speak to this motion on behalf of the Labour Party. It is a motion which calls out Government failure to get to grips with the assessment of need process and puts forward a number of solutions. I hope the Government will listen tonight and work with the Opposition as well as with all of the parties in government to get solutions once and for all. I also will take the opportunity to acknowledge the ongoing campaign and great work of Cara Darmody, who I and my party have engaged with over a long period. Cara is representing so many families with her continued campaign. She has worked tirelessly to turn her own family's circumstances into a national campaign that has already helped so many families and I have no doubt, having met Cara and her father Mark, will help many more families into the future. It was quite damning that in the past few weeks, the now Minister for Education and Youth described the assessment of need process as no longer fit for purpose. That is something that I and many people in the Labour Party, along with Cara and so many other campaigners, have been highlighting to the Government for a long time now. The Minister unfortunately made these remarks without offering any alternative to reform the process. This followed a statement earlier this year from the HSE that it had not a hope of complying with the assessment of need law. Most recent figures show that nearly 18,000 children are now overdue an assessment of need while the HSE is projecting the waiting list for an assessment will grow to over 25,000 by the end of the year. As my colleague from Kildare South said, figures for Kildare-Wicklow show that there were 1,692 children overdue an assessment in the first quarter of 2025. This has now increased to 1,828 children in quarter 2. Over 90% of the children in Kildare and West Wicklow are overdue an assessment by three months or more, far greater than the national waiting list of 85% waiting three months or more. Even if a child gets the assessment of need completed, it basically is not worth the paper it is written on because so many are still waiting to receive the vital therapies the assessment recommended for them and their families. We are all aware of the need for early intervention for these children but the reality for children in my county of Kildare is that there are nearly 1,500 of them waiting for occupational therapy while close to 1,600 are waiting for speech and language therapy. Families are simply finding themselves with no help and no direction for their children. Parents are now taking things into their own hands by forking out thousands of euro on services that should be delivered by the State. Families are eating into their savings and borrowing from their families, friends and the local credit union, just to get their child the best start in life. I know this because these families are in my office every day of the week, asking me what they have to do for the State to help them and their child. Only today, the Government rushed to publish a press release that says it will deliver targeted reforms which the Minister says will result in a faster and more efficient assessment of need. I honestly hope that for the potential 25,000 families this will be the case but I cannot help but think this is the Government making policy on the hop, not really knowing how to get to grips with this crisis and hoping for more time. The Minister said there will be 11 new teams, made up of different therapists. I am not sure if she is aware, but we can barely staff the current CDNTs throughout the country. Will she outline how she intends to recruit these new staff? Where will these new teams be based? Looking at the current staffing figures, there is an 18% vacancy rate, with 445 unfilled roles, across the CDNTs. At this stage in the discussion, I want to highlight the national child development centre which was to be developed in Kildare town by Sensational Kids. As the Minister will be aware, this centre, built to roof level in the town, had to stop because of funding. It would have provided 300 children every week with life-changing therapies, reduced waiting times for families with nowhere else to turn and allowed children to reach their full potential. It would have helped the State further reduce the waiting times for assessment of need and, vitally, train many of the therapists that we need to fill the roles I mentioned. I ask the Minister to talk to the Taoiseach and the Minister of State, Deputy Emer Higgins, about this important matter. Solutions to assist in this crisis can be found in this new development in my county. I plead with the Minister to engage with Karen Leigh and her board to bring this potential solution for so many families to reality. I welcome the continuation of the waiting list initiative into 2026. This is a commitment the Labour Party received in this House a number of years ago and one for which I know Cara Darmody has fought since she began her campaign. This will help those waiting the longest to finally access an assessment. Hopefully, a young child from my home town of Athy who was 12 the last got an assessment will be one of them. His needs now are those of an adult as he is now 23 years of age. Up to last week, he had not received any services. We must remember that there is always another child waiting to be seen and, as the Minister said, behind every number is a child waiting. I am dealing with a lot of parents who are completely stressed by the need to have a diagnosis by 1 October each year to enable them to make an application for a special class or special school. In many cases, the paperwork needed seems to be never-ending for these families. Letters and parliamentary question replies I have received from the NCSE tell parents the State is aware of their child's needs for a place and that the NCSE will work with them to secure such a place. Parents are naturally worried, concerned and confused. With this in mind, I welcome the news tonight that the Department of Education and Youth will remove the requirement to have a diagnosis for a child to be enrolled in a special class or special school. It is a positive announcement, but a question remains, and perhaps the Minister can clear it up tonight. Why do we have to wait until 2027 for this to happen? Why can those parents contacting me and so many of my colleagues not get the relief this will provide in September 2026? This week alone, I have been dealing with three families who have had their applications for domiciliary care allowance turned down. In all cases, they are waiting on an assessment of need. I contend that this is one of the main reasons these families are being turned down. I am sure the Minister, like me, sits down and goes through a heartbreaking day-to-day diary with such families to enable them to appeal or request a review of such decisions. They depend on private assessments to get their applications for domiciliary care allowance over the line. Many simply cannot afford to do so. I contend that without the assessment of need, they are being turned down. It is heartbreaking to listen to these families. Children are pulling their hair out, not socialising with children of similar ages, sitting by themselves in school playgrounds, not sleeping at night, not able to clean themselves after they go to the toilet, yet they are still being turned down for this payment because they do not have an assessment of need. That is wrong. The day-to-day diary is gut-wrenching and emotional. I only hope that this latest attempt by the Government will speed up assessment to prevent these families from feeling that nobody is listening to them and the Government simply does not care. It seems like every day is a fight for these families. Every day they have to fight for various services for their child. If it is not an assessment, it is the therapies. If it is not the therapies, it is a school place or a bus place. These families have to fight tooth and nail for something that is an automatic right for every other children in this State. For those with additional needs, it is always a fight. I will tell the Minister one thing. These families are not going anywhere. They will fight and fight until Fianna Fáil and Fine Gael finally get their act together and start delivering for children with additional needs. The Government must give a clear commitment to families on when it plans to comply with its legal obligations to the assessment-of-need process under the Disability Act 2005. It must have a clear and immediate action plan that gets to grips with the growing waiting lists. The workforce challenges must be addressed. Vital services, such as speech and language therapy, occupational therapy and physiotherapy, must be properly resourced. Children must have access to special schools and school places in their local area. Most importantly, the Government must give certainty to families on when their child can access an assessment and the services they need, so that the constant battle can finally stop, once and for all.

We now move to the Social Democrats slot. I call Deputy Cummins.

Imagine trying to convince a government that it has to uphold the laws that it rules over. It is like the plot of an eery psychological thriller. Imagine being the parents of a child with additional needs who is trying to access these supports for their child but they are met with blockage after blockage. Parents have enough to be doing to support and parent their child without having to be activists to be able to get the basic legal entitlement for an assessment of need for their child. Parents are exhausted and they feel ignored. They are disappointed and desperate. I have said that so many times in this House in the year since I was elected to the House. I am sick of saying the same thing again and again. These parents are exhausted. They cannot be activists for the things they are entitled to by law. It is unfair, unjust and illegal. The Minister said we should not be relying on the private system forever. We should not be relying on it at all. We have a public system and that is what we should be relying on. When will people get it? Families have no choice but to access private services. Some parents are able to handle financial cost and others parents are not. Why should they have to pay for a service that the State is, by law, supposed to be providing? The system is broken into smithereens. Parents want the best for their children. I am a parent of four. I want the best for my children, and so does every parent who has contacted me from throughout the country to talk about what they need for their child with additional needs. One parent contacted me and told me her son, who is non-verbal, will not see a speech and language therapist for four or five years. That is a basic service that a non-verbal child should get. I have learned from the latest press release that there will be no need for an assessment of need to access a special class or special school. What does that mean for a mild general learning disability school? Is this a new way to call these schools catch-all schools? This will be detrimental to the children attending those schools who are thriving and doing so well. The education committee heard from those schools before the summer. We were blown away by their passion and all they had to say about what they do to support those children. Because of what has happened, they now ask how they will support those children. I have bringing attention to this issue, as I said, for a year now. It is devastating for everybody involved that they are not going to be able to maintain the wonderful service they have. What the Department has said is not good enough. It is not good enough either that we had this press release because we are having this debate. The Minister should be doing her job. We should not be over here telling her how to do her and pointing out all that is wrong. It is just not good enough.

The crisis in assessments of need sits within a much broader picture of chronic neglect, by successive Governments, of the disability sector generally and, within that, the front-line disability services and children's disability network teams, as well as, more egregiously, the primary care services. We cannot meaningfully address the crisis in assessments of need in the absence of a reckoning with that context and without acknowledging the undeniable fact that primary care services had been under-resourced for years prior to the HSE recruitment embargo of 2023 and 2024 and the pay-and-numbers strategy, both of which have impacted so drastically on those services. The pay-and-numbers strategy continues to prevent primary care services from rebuilding to a level where they can meaningfully be seen to provide a timely adequate service. In most parts of the country, primary care services do not really exist. If you are on a waiting list for three, four or five years, that essentially means being left without a service. Many thousands of families are seeking an assessment of need for their child. They languish on that particular waiting list for months or years only to then languish on a waiting list for intervention. Over 18,000 of those children are overdue an assessment in respect of the six-month threshold. There is a lot of legitimate concern among disability representative groups and families about the potential change to the right to an assessment of need proposed by the Minister, Deputy Foley, today because it is the one right that has a legal safeguard. Many families are stuck in an assessment of need avenue unnecessarily at the moment because the therapies they should be accessing through primary care services are tragically under-resourced in many cases. Lots of families are seeking an assessment of need when they may benefit much more from timely therapeutic assessment in primary care services followed by timely intervention. As we know, an assessment of need is only useful insofar as it is an access point to interventions. Pouring €20 million into assessments of need in the absence of workforce planning and comprehensive recruitment across all children's services is a dead-end policy. We need our child services to be joined up and working together, not disconnected and drawing up the shutter to each other due to the strain they are under. It is for this reason that the HSE single point of access proposal is sensible. It should assist child services to work in a more co-ordinated and integrated manner. A major issue in those services is what is known in clinical circles as defensive practice, which refers to a service having overly rigid exclusion criteria, basically repelling referrals of children in an unreasonable and inflexible manner. The human cost of that is children being passed from one waiting list to the next. The main reason for these patterns of defensive practice is that services are so overstretched, they understandably become territorial and guarding of their own limits. The reason they are overstretched is they have been drastically under-resourced. While the single point of access proposal is welcome, it will not paper over the cracks of this chronic neglect and the ongoing imposition of recruitment restrictions. Another historical and, in some parts of the country, more recent factor that has placed unbearable strain on primary care services is the significant number of children transferred en masse from children's disability network team waiting lists onto primary care waiting lists in the context of the roll-out of progressing disability services. This occurred without the necessary recruitment to meet the additional demand on those primary care services. It reflects a fragmented and disjointed approach to service development. Earlier this year, HSE figures released to me highlighted the dire state of these services across disciplines and throughout the country. Primary care services are in deep crisis, with children routinely waiting two, three or perhaps five years, and in some instances, far longer, for essential therapies. I only came upon that information through very persistent follow-up parliamentary questions because initially the HSE only released a figure of 52-plus weeks for long-waiters. In some cases, it was many hundreds of weeks. The first step in addressing this crisis in services more generally for children and, in particular, primary care is acknowledging its existence and the interplay between the Departments of Health and disability in resolving it. As a matter of urgency, we need to see the Government devise a workforce plan for primary care services based on a clear number of clinicians per population size in each health region, with increased staff ratios in areas of social deprivation. This plan needs to be followed immediately by a comprehensive recruitment drive. If pursued, this would provide much greater continuity of care for young people. It would reduce dependency on expensive outsourcing of assessments and improve retention of staff in services struggling at the moment and have been for many years with out-of-control waiting lists.

I want to talk about a number of people from my constituency with whom I have been working. While changes are happening, we need to be careful. Parents and their children have been suffering. They have been neglected and there is a huge issue with trust. In these changes, there will be a real need to bring parents and families along. The big concern is that the changes are another way to avoid taking responsibility and delivering the services needed in schools and primary care, as was mentioned. One family with whom I have been working is that of Gráinne Carney. Her child has autism. I reached out to her. She said that even with the assessment of need, which she has not got, the local CDNT does not even have a psychologist. Even if someone gets the assessment of need, where will the services come from? This is the real challenge. I have worked with another constituent, Rob McMahon, in relation to his son, who is still waiting for a special school place. He said the waiting lists are growing longer. He has a question for the Minister. Have any more staff been taken on to get through this? This question is directly from a parent whose child has additional needs and autism. He said the Minister talks about early intervention being key but parents are not seeing that. That is the reality on the ground. They are not seeing that early intervention that can support their children. That is why there are protests outside the Dáil and families taking action and highlighting this. They can see what is happening to their children. Their children are being let down while other children go to school. It is so difficult for them. They can see what their children are losing out on. Imagine watching your child and knowing their potential is not being supported because they are not able to access the services they need and should have, as a right. As a wealthy country, they should be provided. We are failing children with disabilities in our health system and our education system. While special classes and schools are needed, the services and resources have to be available within the schools and the health services. One family emailed me today. They asked not to be named. Their younger son is six years old. He has been diagnosed with an intellectual disability. He has been waiting for two years for an assessment of need from the local primary care centre. It was delayed because there was no psychologist in place. The family finally got the assessment of need and got the report in November. Prior to that, they had applied to the NCSE for a special school place but, because they had not got the report in time, the NCSE told them they are ineligible for a special school place. This is shambolic. There are thousands of people who have been told they are ineligible, despite their children needing these places. We need action on this.

I thank Sinn Féin for tabling this motion. I thank, in particular, Cara Darmody and her father for their fantastic campaigning. It is an absolute shame that Cara is out there in this weather at the moment and that she feels the need to do this in storm conditions because of the failure of the Government to vindicate the legal rights and entitlements of children with additional needs and disabilities. It is absolutely shocking that she has to go these lengths. It is obviously beyond disgraceful that the waiting lists for assessments of need continue to rise. There are thousands more than there were the last time I looked at this. There are 18,000 children with disabilities and additional needs on these waiting lists. Getting an assessment of need is often critical to accessing supports and services the children need but, even if they do get the assessment of need, the services are not available because of the lack of staffing in CDNTs and CAMHS. The consequence I certainly see in my clinic is that children are regressing. This is all about giving children with additional needs and disabilities an equal chance, the same as other children. That is why they need the supports. What is actually happening is they are regressing because they are on waiting lists and their parents are in absolute despair because their children are deteriorating. It also overlaps with housing. If you have the double problem that you are also in a precarious housing situation, in overcrowded conditions or in a homeless hub, you cannot even get the services because of the conditions you are living in. I want to highlight for the Minister of State that in Dún Laoghaire–Rathdown now – I do not know if this is true elsewhere – even where occupational therapists or other specialists in this area have identified priority housing requirements for children with disabilities or special needs, the council says there are too many kids with developmental delays or autism and it is therefore ignoring that or is not willing to take it on board as a priority because it would mean even more housing demand. Therefore, it is not listening to what the specialists say. It is absolutely disgraceful because the consequence is children suffering.

For years now, the Irish State has in effect been abusing disabled children because State neglect has been continual. We all know assessments of need are essential. Imagine that children are regressing and that when they should be learning to speak properly, integrating and getting an education, they are being prevented from accessing services. We all know that practically all parents who can afford it raise money and pay for everything privately. Some 18,000 children are overdue an assessment of need, and the backlog is increasing. For three quarters of the year, only 4,500 assessments were done, so the number of children overdue an assessment will keep going up. Under the waiting list initiative taken last year, the State paid €23 million to carry out 6,373 assessments, which means a cost of €3,500-plus per assessment of need. The reason is that we do not have enough permanent staff. We do not have them because of the housing and cost-of-living crises, which mean professionals, including teachers and others, are all being forced to emigrate. This is going to continue owing to the announcement today that two people need an income of €150,000, or up to that, to be able to afford a two-bedroom apartment. This is all related to the fact that although there has been a budget surplus in this country, the State has refused to invest it in public services, including housing. The care system and children are suffering as a result. Dublin West has the longest waiting lists, not that it is a competition. In the Blakestown CDNT area, the waiting list was seven and a half years, if the Minister of State can imagine that. A child is almost ageing into adulthood by the time he or she is assessed. I believe the period is now down to 72 months. Yippee. Again, the reason for the delay is that there is insufficient investment in staff to reduce the numbers on the lists. It is shocking that this has been allowed to continue year upon year. I salute the motion.

The fact that the Government is still breaking the law years after this matter was highlighted is absolutely scandalous. Referrals are supposed to be made in three months and assessments completed within six. The situation is getting worse, with the number waiting now over 18,000, as has been outlined here. In Laois–Offaly, the figures are ballooning. What is happening is an absolute scandal. The average waiting time for a referral is 21 months-plus. It can be plus another six, eight or 12 months, and some must wait for over two years. It has got worse. Figures I have got in answer to parliamentary questions show the situation got worse even between October and November of this year. After waiting for a referral and the completion of an assessment, a child finds there are few or no services. According to replies I am getting to parliamentary questions, the picture is not getting any better. The CDNTs in Laois are threadbare. Network 11 has eight vacant posts and network 12 has 11, and this is in a relatively small county. There is a total of 19 vacancies in the CDNT teams. There are no behavioural therapists or therapy assistants. Only 50% of the physiotherapy posts are filled, and the same applies to social worker posts. There has been no occupational therapist for child services up to recently. This is what the HSE told me in a letter. It also stated there is no approval to recruit. All of these things are causing problems for children and their families. Children are regressing because of the lack of intervention and services. This is leading to problems now but it is going to lead to bigger problems in later life. Therefore, the Government needs to stop breaking the law. It and the HSE have not set targets. I cannot figure out why the Government has not done so. If it has no targets, it will not make progress. The problems have been clear for decades. We do not have the staff in the right place. We need a clear workforce plan to train and retain staff. The fact that the State has to go to the private sector and pay €3,500-plus for each assessment of need shows a complete failure. We need to recruit the staff and retain them. We need to get at it now. What I suggest has been referred to here for years; it needs to be done.

What does it say about our society, Government and State if there is, in the middle of a storm, a 15-year-old girl who is to sleep outside the Dáil for 50 hours? What does it say that she started her sleep-out around the same time as a protest by a large number of disability organisations that were crying out to the Government not to make them poorer, as the Government has just done through the budget, and crying out for a winter emergency payment? It points to the utter failure of the State to vindicate the rights of children with additional needs. The ask is extremely simple and basic: stop breaking your own law, provide the assessments of need and then the therapies. What is happening shows how messed up the priorities of the Government are. The priority is to splash the cash for the fast-food bosses, big multinationals, builders and developers instead of caring for children with additional needs. The motion contains simple actions that the State could take to end the assessment-of-needs backlog. The Government is not opposing the motion, but is the motion just going to go on a long list of very good motions, including motions we have proposed, suggesting how the Government can deal with this problem, while it does absolutely nothing about it? Will it just join the law in something that the Government ignores? What is the target date to provide all the assessments within six months? Since the Government is not opposing the motion, it should be able to name that date. What is the emergency action plan? What is the longer-term workforce plan? How much additional funding will be allocated to provide special needs services and appropriate school places for all? I want to mention an awful, tragic case I was asked to raise, namely that of a young girl called Jannah, who was 12 at the time she tragically took her own life. She had been waiting for three years and ten weeks, which is about 12 times the legally required period within which her assessment of need should have started. Her mother contacted the authorities seven times to say the case was urgent and that an assessment was needed. The girl did not receive any assessment or any of the services she needed. It is an absolute disgrace.

I commend and congratulate the teenage disability rights campaigner Cara Darmody, from Ardfinnan in my constituency, for the outstanding work she continues to do in the area of disabilities. Is it not a scandal and disgrace that the Government is breaking the law every single day, knowingly and deliberately? When the Ministers accepted their seals of office, they promised to uphold the Constitution and laws of this State; however, they are not doing that. Every child with a disability is entitled to an assessment of need within six months of referral. A reply to a parliamentary question I tabled shows that, on 30 September, 18,097 children were waiting for an assessment. That figure will be over 22,000 by the end of the year. The Government is breaking the law and is well aware of the fact. I raised this issue as far back as January 2017, almost nine years ago, with the then Minister for Health and current Tánaiste. Successive Governments have simply done nothing to make circumstances better. In fact, they have disimproved considerably since. If the Government is not going to uphold the law, it should resign. A related scandal is the decimation of the children's disability network services. The object of the interdisciplinary teams is to support child development and well-being and participation in family and community life on the basis of an individual family support plan. All these services are essential. However, for children in south Tipperary, this is pie in the sky. The team based in Clonmel is almost non-existent. There is no occupational therapist, physiotherapist, psychologist or dietitian. Children are being failed not only on assessment of need but also in these disability network teams. It is time for this Government to either uphold the law or to go.

I too want to pay tribute to Cara Darmody and the tremendous work that she has done in achieving so much for children waiting for assessments of need. It is shocking that a 15-year-old girl has to camp outside Leinster House overnight for 50 hours in a storm just to make sure that this Government actually abides by the law. The Minister of State must feel mortification that a 15-year-old girl has to stay outside on a stormy night just to get what people are entitled to. The Tánaiste stated that he wanted to make Ireland the best country in the European Union to be a child. This Government is presiding over more than 18,000 children waiting for more than six months for an assessment of need. That does not even mean they have access to treatment, just that particular assessment. That is thousands of children who are not getting the treatment that they need and thousands of children, as a result, who are not reaching the potential that they could achieve. On a human basis, that is absolutely shocking. It is incredible that Cara Darmody made an agreement with the Government that there would be a recruitment campaign large enough to make sure that the staff were there to do the assessments of need. This Government implemented a recruitment campaign, but it was incredible and something that I have never seen before, since it was practically secret and the target audience, the people the Government was hoping to recruit, did not know that it was even happening. Cara Darmody today, in a press conference, said that it was like the third secret of Fatima. Nobody knew about the recruitment process. I believe it was deeply cynical. I believe that the Government promised to recruit but made no effort to recruit. The best way for the Government to say "No" is to say "Yes" and then do nothing about it. Cara went on with regard to trying to get therapists. She contacted a company from Britain. The company from Britain was very happy to help. We have the staff available to deal with the waiting lists, yet the HSE and the Government will not employ those staff. There are major questions to be asked about that. I know it goes to the issue of collective bargaining and so on within the public sector but we need to be able to target certain sectors where there is a low supply of staff with increased wages to make sure that we have better recruitment in those areas. The Government announced a new plan today. I believe it is really cynical. The Government is going to do an assessment of children so they can have an assessment of need. How do you assess a child before you give them an assessment of need? Is this not going to create another barrier which will slow down the process? It is a barrier that might actually keep children away from an assessment of need, make the waiting list go down and make the Government look better, but still bring no value to the child in receiving the services that they need. Regarding the level of funding, an Aontú parliamentary question about a number of different facilities and colleges found out that speech and language therapists were reduced from 370 in the last academic year to 355 in the academic year before the pandemic. The Government is going in reverse in the supply of students who will become the staff needed in these areas. I have very little confidence about the Government fixing this. I believe it should put its money where its mouth is, make sure there is an attractive package and recruit the necessary people.

I have spoken before about the broken system of needs assessment and delivery of services. Today, alongside this welcome motion, we see the Government making ambitious promises of faster assessments of need backed by new expert teams to streamline processes. It sounds like an early Christmas gift but time will tell whether it is just an empty promise or if it can actually be delivered. The Government tells us that 11 new teams with 44 expert staff have transformed the system, yet we know that across the health service, the vacancy rates remain stubbornly high. Speech and language therapists, occupational therapists and psychologists are all in short supply. We hear recruitment and retention are ongoing, but the challenges of meeting that are equally stark. With so many posts lying vacant for months and sometimes years, where will the staff in this plan come from? Where is the plan to fix the staff recruitment so the plan can actually work? We are told that 6,000 assessments will be completed this year, which is a 44% increase on last year. It is impressive but it is against a backdrop, as others have said, that will reach 22,000 by the end of the year. Families are still waiting. People are outside the Dáil, protesting, and the scale of the challenge is dwarfing the headline numbers. Without a credible recruitment plan, the targets risk being little more than further political spin. The reforms promise to free therapists from paperwork, which would of course be welcome, but if the HSE cannot fill the existing vacancies and retain staff in front-line roles, the bottlenecks will remain. I welcome, in theory, the single point of access and the autism assessment protocol that might help in the long term, but families need assurance that qualified professionals will be available to deliver the service. Announcing reforms is easy when the Government is being held to account, but the issue is whether they can be delivered. That requires tackling recruitment and retention of staff issues and of course the short, medium and long-term resources. Until we see a clear plan to address the vacancy rates, we still have credibility issues with these targets. I welcome that the HSE will introduce a single point of access system. My time is up but challenges remain for the Government to meet its own targets.

On one of the worst nights of the year, 15-year-old Cara Darmody is sleeping outside the gates of Leinster House. She is putting everyone in here to shame. She is calling on this Government to address the backlog of assessments of need for children with special requirements as the national emergency it truly is. Cara rightly reminds us that under the Disability Act 2005, every child is entitled to a completed needs assessment within six months of the application, yet that legal deadline is being missed in more than 90% of cases, leaving more than 18,000 children languishing on waiting lists, some for years, without clarity about what supports they need. Today, this Government must declare this backlog a national emergency, allocate immediate emergency funding, launch a tangible plan to hire specialist assessors and therapists within weeks, and monitor and report progress publicly every month until every child receives their legal entitlement. I highlight a stark warning from Ireland's disability coalition, which is also outside Leinster House today. Someone from my community, Sarah Attridge, travelled nearly five hours to get to the gates here today, protesting that budget 2026 has left disabled people up to €1,400 worse off. This is not just a number but a heating versus eating crisis. People with disabilities face impossible choices between warmth and food this winter. Despite acknowledging the extra cost of living with a disability, the Government has failed to act. The removal of one-off payments and the absence of a permanent cost-of-living disability payment are pushing thousands deeper into poverty. As the coalition says, disability poverty does not happen by accident. It is the result of policy decisions. The coalition is calling for emergency winter fuel funding. The Minister of State cannot stand idly by and not accept that that is a crisis. We need urgent action including, as I say, an emergency winter payment and a long-term commitment to a cost-of-disability payment. No one should have to ration heat or skip meals because of systematic neglect. You have to talk about the positive things that happen in society too. I was in the Celtic Ross Hotel on Sunday night where the most extraordinary family, John and Mary McCarthy, donated grounds to west Cork for an autism and disability centre. This was started by the Kilbrittain group with tractor runs and fundraising, which Jim and Anne O'Mahony have been spearheading with their committee for a number of years. Giving grounds to the State and the people of west Cork is an extraordinary gift which has to be acknowledged here and by the public. Now I know it has been signed over to CoAction to take on the mantle of building this centre of excellence for the people of west Cork, because young people with autism and other disabilities need the respect that they deserve. The CEO of CoAction is under pressure to deliver but the services are all over the place. Maybe one centre of excellence like the one that will be built in Dunmanway might be a help. If the Minister of State and any other TDs are around, a great tractor run, fundraising for this effort, is taking place on 28 December. They are most welcome to west Cork for the Kilbrittain tractor run.

Assessment of need. I will just read it out. Assessment of need. Cara, who is 15 years of age, can see that there has to be an assessment of need. A 15-year-old girl has been outspoken, supported by her family to support her family. She will be sleeping outside for 50 hours to highlight something that is not there, which we in here should be ashamed of. That is what it comes to. I will read out something relating to a person in my own area. He now has it in writing in his private psychological report, which cost €1,200, that he needs a special class or special school so he will be ready for when the NCSE portal opens in January for the September 2027 intake. He would not be ready if he was waiting for a public assessment. A child cannot get home school tuition, an ASD Ireland parking permit or an assistance dog in some charities without an assessment. Not having an assessment blocks everything. That is the problem. The assessments need to be done; six months is too long. The Government has tried to make an amendment to this and make improvements; I welcome it. However, by agreeing to something, it does not mean the Government is going to do it. It needs to be carried out and we need accountability. Cara was able to tell the Government that since the last assessment was done, the list has increased. From the last promises it said it would meet, the list has increased. The Government says it is going to do something, but the proof will be in the pudding when the delivery is done. I want the Government to deliver it. Cara wants it to deliver it. All the families want it to deliver it. Talk is cheap. It is about assessment of need. If somebody cannot do that within the remit of their own work and the guidelines set down around it, they should be moved out and someone who will actually do it should be got in. There are lots of people who will work with the Government to get the assessment of need but the bureaucratic bull that is put in the way of doing this is what is stopping a lot of assessments of need.

One of my first contributions in this House as a TD was on this topic of the assessment of need and early interventions. In the time since, countless parents have contacted me to tell me that they are still waiting beyond the statutory timeframes for an assessment of need and for the supports their children require. We simply cannot continue to have a system where delay is normal and compliance with statutory timelines is an exception. We must deliver the necessary supports for these children on time and without delay. It is the least the children and their families deserve. I welcome the reforms announced by the Minister today and I hope they will deliver a significant and immediate improvement in the system. Families and children cannot be expected to wait for the supports they are entitled to or be forced to get a report privately. This creates inequity, undermines trust and is deeply unfair. I got a reply to a parliamentary question earlier this year showing a demonstrable difference between people getting assessments of need on the northside and on the southside of this city. Many of my constituents cannot afford this nor can they afford to hire a solicitor when the statutory timeframe has been passed. They should not be expected to carry this burden. A child's future should not depend on the family's ability to pay. Early intervention is vital for these children. The HSE tells us this, the clinicians tell us this and the parents know it. However, families are exhausted and early intervention is more of an aspiration than a reality. Each day without these supports closes developmental windows and puts unnecessary pressure on families. The system must be fast, meaningful and actionable. The system must assess children within the statutory timeframe - not occasionally, not in exceptional cases, but in each and every case. Critically, the system must restore the link between assessment and intervention. The children have enormous potential and have so much to offer our society. It is our responsibility that the system should allow them to flourish rather than hold them back. We must deliver assessments faster, provide supports sooner and ensure that no child is left behind. I urge the Minister of State to place equity and fairness at the heart of this reform. We cannot accept in a republic that a child's needs are not assessed on time and that the supports they so urgently need are not accessible. I ask her to ensure that every child, regardless of background or circumstances, has timely assessment, a clear pathway to interventions and access to the support they are entitled to.

I am cautiously optimistic about the announcement today by the Minister, Deputy Foley, and the Minister of State, Deputy Higgins, and I wish them well. I am going to give a different slant and focus on the needs piece followed by the assessment piece. I have met and listened to parents, educators from the earliest stage, teachers, those working with young adults and therapists in my area of Meath East. Focusing on the needs, there are many local initiatives that can actually be enacted using alternative respite budgets, treatment purchase funding, therapies such as art, drama, equine and music, and investment in sensory and nurture rooms within existing early years and school facilities. There are colleges of further education and training, for example in Dunboyne in my area, that are training medical and social care administrators who would be able to free up therapists' time. There is an inconvenient truth here that was manifest in the HSE recruitment embargo of 2022 to 2023 and was preceded by the cancellation of developmental checks during the SARSCoV2 restrictions from 2020 to 2022. We have had four years that have effectively contributed to this backlog. The ages of the children affected concurs with that. For four-year-olds, five-year-olds, six-year-olds and seven-year-olds, that timeline is concurrent. There is another area that is working very well but is under threat, and that is the area of personalised budgets, a pilot scheme set up by the HSE that needs to be mainstreamed. Families use the budget to purchase bespoke services for their children, including teenagers and young adults. Families can be trusted to manage the funding effectively and efficiently. For example, I am holding up a piece of art by my friend Amy who is 22 years of age and has autism. She is pursuing a level 5 and a level 6 ETB art course at Grennan Mill Craft School. Leap Ireland supported Amy and her family through the personalised budget process to now reach her true potential. Last night, I saw the documentary, "Born That Way", a powerful account by Éamon Little of the Camphill communities that were set up by Gladys and Patrick Lydon. The activities they provided were suited to the abilities of the young adults who attended. Perversely and unfortunately, the Camphill communities were wound down. Now we have a home-sharing model that is being rolled out by the Health Service Executive. History has a habit of repeating itself. We have to take those learnings and implement them. I hope that the child, the teenager, the young adult will be at the very centre of all planning and delivery of services to meet their needs first. There can be no expensive layers of management to the provision of services. It should be needs first followed by the assessment. I have been reliably informed by disability services in my own area that by taking that approach, not every child might need the assessment. If the needs can be addressed in the community, that will probably filter out many hundreds.

I thank the Minister of State for her visit to the CRC in Dublin Bay North. It was great to see her and long may her visits to north Dublin continue. This topic was one of the first things I spoke about in this House as well. When we were in discussions on government formation as regional Independents, it was big part of our negotiations. We made a clear commitment in the programme for Government that every child in this State deserved timely assessment, timely intervention and the right support to thrive. The Minister of State is just into her new remit. I congratulate her and wish her the best of luck. One of my predecessors sat there and was in the same Department. Now that she is in her role and given that assessment of need is in the HSE's remit, I hope she lets it know what she wants it to do. She should tell it what everyone in this Chamber wants it to do. The lack of accountability is not acceptable. Thousands of families are still fighting across the island, including in my constituency, for their children's legal entitlement under the Disability Act. Parents should not have to become full-time advocates just to secure the basics. Therapists should not be left trying to deliver services in the system. I want to acknowledge and thank FUSS Ireland who came to the cross-party committee focused on autism. There are Members in the House who were on that committee. The honesty and strength of the FUSS Ireland representatives in that meeting was very informative, and it was solution focused. That is what I always strive to be in this House. I do not want to just give out. In my last two minutes, I want to show the Minister of State some of the solutions that I hope she will grab the HSE with and tell it what she wants it to do - not ongoing evaluations, not measurements, but what is working and what is not. One thing I want to talk about is the guarantee of assessment. The assessment of need cannot remain a door that opens to nothing. I have heard multiple Members say this. Assessments and interventions must be funded and delivered together, not years apart. We must establish a national and research function; a team with the responsibility for caseload data, waiting list transparency and independent evaluation so that decisions are driven by evidence. Create the family navigator role, which I am cautiously optimistic for due to the Government's announcement today, and peer-led paid supports so that families are not lost in the system. Some kids have parents who can do this, but some do not. We need one clear way. Embed accountability by defining the senior responsibility framework. Do not let people away with not being held accountable. As Deputy O'Toole said, we must listen to children not as a token gesture, but as primary right holders whose voices force and inform policy and design. The early years sector is already doing this. The people there are qualified to do so. I spoke to Ms Elaine Dunne from the Federation of Early Childhood Providers. They are not being paid but they are willing. We are going to lose a workforce.

The Minister of State will be aware, as all Government TDs are, that one of the most significant promises we made at the outset of the formation of the Government was to enhance services for children with disabilities. I recall the Taoiseach defining what we needed as a step change in how we provide these services. The programme for Government is explicit in its objective to: Ensure children and their families who need early intervention and therapy input can access that support in a timely way by increasing staffing, training more therapists, and prioritising children’s disability teams to deliver supports and services. Interestingly, that objective did not include legislative change, but it is welcome that we had the flexibility to recognise where a system was not working and change legislation to make sure we could enhance it to try to bring about that change. Today marks a step in meeting the objective of the programme for Government. I share the sentiment of some of our colleagues, in that it is a cautious welcome I give this. In doing that, I fully recognise the Minister of State's commitment and the commitment of the Minister, Deputy Foley, who has discussed this with us in depth at our parliamentary party meeting. She has given this a lot of time and a lot of thought. I compliment both the Minister and the Minister of State on that. I hope the changes they are making will bring about the measures we need and that they will have success. As other Members have said, I am anxious about the time it may take to see the impact, and I am anxious about the measures having the effect we desire to see as a Government because, like many, I note the large numbers of children currently waiting. There are 217 children waiting beyond the timeline in County Galway alone. I welcome the first steps in developing a system where there are no wrong doors for parents. That is crucial. Parents who have concerns about their children or professionals who refer children to therapists for assessment or therapy need to know they are going to receive a welcome. Too often, we hear of parents being advised by a service provider that the needs of their child are not appropriate to the intervention to which they have been referred. We know about children being referred to CDNT, which then says that CAMHS is the appropriate service only for CAMHS to say it thinks community psychology is the appropriate service. We need to streamline that. We need to make sure that when a child is referred, the referral is made to someone who can and will help, not somebody who might pass that child to a different service provider. We are moving towards that direction. We need to stop that frustrating merry-go-round. In welcoming the legislative change, I am confident that we have matched this change with appropriate funding in budget 2026 to resource these new teams. Part of budget 2026 was about making sure our public services could withstand what might be constraining economic circumstances. I hope we have included this measure in that. I am confident that we have. I am concerned, though, that we may meet challenges in recruiting appropriate therapists to the roles. If we do meet that challenge, we have an obligation to overcome it. That is through working conditions, job security, permanency and appropriate contracts.

I thank everybody for their contribution here this evening on this really important issue. It is something all of us are familiar with because we all work with families, individuals and children across the country who are affected by this. We all know vulnerable people, including children, who are clearly in need of State support and who unfortunately are left wanting. That is simply not acceptable. Families are stressed out, they are frustrated, they feel abandoned, and that is not fair. No one should be made feel like they need to go public or to protest to draw attention to this issue. Like the Minister, Deputy Foley, I recently met Cara Darmody and I was struck by her courage and commitment. Cara really is a remarkable teenage girl, and she is right. People with disabilities have in many cases been poorly served by the State. The motion presented this evening highlights some of the aspects of what is a complex issue, the fact that there are unacceptable delays in the delivery of assessments of need, and the need to increase the availability of and access to appropriate services for children with disabilities. As a Government, we have been taking steps to address these complex challenges, but I acknowledge that further work needs to be done, and it needs to be done as a matter of urgency. The assessment of need list sets out the challenge very starkly. We had over 18,000 applications overdue for completion nationwide at the end of September. This figure is expected to grow to over 22,000 in the coming weeks. Over 10,600 new applications were received last year, with some 4,100 completed assessments in 2024. Demand for assessments of need has doubled in five years and demand is clearly outstripping the capacity of the system that is there to try to meet it. The introduction of the targeted waiting list by the Government is helping. Over 6,300 clinical assessments have now been commissioned from private providers in the past 18 months, and in the next 12 months, 6,000 more will be delivered through this initiative. I am also encouraged by the 30% increase in assessments completed last year in comparison to the year previous and the 57% increase in completed assessments in the first nine months of this year compared to last year. The figures show that we are moving in the right direction, but we need to do more, and we need to do it faster. The introduction of the targeted legislative reforms announced today to Part 2 of the Disability Act will be key in allowing us to improve the efficiency and the effectiveness of the assessment of need process. Crucially, these reforms will not affect anyone's statutory right to an assessment of need or change the timeframes set out in the Act. Beginning next year, the Department will be undertaking a wider review of the Disability Act, and in line with the programme for Government commitment, the review will be carried out in consultation with impacted stakeholders. While my Department will progress these legislative reforms as a matter of priority, I cannot understate the importance of ensuring that operational reform within our public system occurs in conjunction with any amendments to the Disability Act. The Minister, Deputy Foley, has outlined that there will be additional resources provided this coming year to support the delivery of assessments of need. These will include training as well as additional clinical and administrative supports to assist assessment and liaison officers during the process and I am of the belief that not only will these wraparound supports lead to a more efficient process in the medium term, but they will also lead to a therapist spending less time on assessments and more time on delivering therapies to children. I am only three weeks in this role, but I already know from speaking with parents that the system is not working as it should for their children. We have thousands of children on long waiting lists for services. Indeed, some children have been there for years, and some may be on multiple waiting lists. That is why we are implementing this reform. This Government remains intent on pursuing significant investment and reform at pace in the coming months as part of a programme of sustained transformation across disability services. One of the key vehicles for this radical reform is the recently published National Human Rights Strategy for Disabled People 2025-2030. Pillar 4 of this strategy is about improving access to inclusive, integrated health services from early intervention to mental health supports and health promotion. This pillar includes a clear commitment to address capacity challenges across all children's therapy services in children's disability network teams, in primary care and mental health services for children and young people in schools. As the Minister outlined, a significant challenge we face in ensuring that children with disabilities receive the therapy they need is the recruitment and retention of therapists across the health system, and many Members have commented on that. While progress has been made through recruitment and retention initiatives, which we have seen in the increase in the number of CDNT staff, significant work still needs to be completed across the health sector to ensure that we have adequate staffing capacity to deliver therapies for children that need them. This progress needs to be achieved in the context of significant challenges internationally in the recruitment of staff into the wider health and social care sector. In order to increase the pipeline of therapists and to support sustained growth in our CDNTs and the wider disability service, the Government has approved an expansion in the number of training places for health and social care professionals over the coming years. Expansion will provide over 460 new places by 2028, including 310 this year and over 130 next year. In conjunction with this, the HSE also continues to drive intensive domestic and international recruitment efforts to obtain additional therapists to deliver these essential therapies. The HSE continues to work with overseas agencies on an ongoing basis to expand international recruitment. Within this, there is a particular focus on Irish trained overseas applicants, with a relocation package available to meet vouched expenses of a health and social care professional who has travelled overseas. I am confident that continued efforts by the HSE will allow us to build on some of the success we have seen so far in our CDNT staffing across the broader healthcare sector and that this will support the delivery of crucial therapy services at an earlier stage. The Minister highlighted that it is not simply a case of recruiting staff to improve access to therapies; we need to resolve a series of wider systemic issues. This will require intensive collaboration with our colleagues in the Department of Education and Youth, as well as the Department of Health, over the coming months. The implementation by the HSE next year of the single point of access model, which was referenced by many Members, will ensure that children will be directed to the appropriate service, whether primary care, CAMHS or CDNTs, and the introduction of our new in-reach teams will support their work. The HSE expects to have its new autism assessment and interventions pathway protocol ready in February and to be able to start delivering a new and consistent approach to autism assessments across the entire public health system. These initiatives have been achieved through the work of the HSE and by Departments working closely with each other. More importantly, they work in collaboration with our key stakeholders, taking into account the lived experiences of people and children with disabilities and their families. I look forward to engaging further with colleagues and stakeholders across government on this issue in the coming months. There is no doubt that addressing the problems with the assessment-of-need process and access to therapies is a challenge. It is a complex and challenging piece of work and requires a well thought-out and comprehensive plan to ensure that all aspects of the system are examined and, where necessary, fixed or improved. I am absolutely clear, as is the Minister, that delivering appropriate assessments of need to children and delivering quicker access to therapies and earlier intervention to children with disabilities are absolute priorities, not just for me and the Minister but for all members of the Government. That is why we are taking a whole-of-government approach to this.

The Disability Act 2005 states an assessment of need must take place within six months. The Government cannot get its act together on a 20-year-old Act. The response to my most recent parliamentary question on this matter stated that of the 1,200 or more children in Louth waiting for assessments, 250 have been waiting for over 12 months and 350 have waited between six and 12 months. The HSE stated the statutory timeframes are not being met in Louth due to limited staff resources and an unprecedented increase in the number of applications and the workload, which have significantly affected wait times. It also stated that it is currently not possible to guarantee statutory timeframes for when completions of assessments of need will be met, that limited staff resources and an unprecedented increase in applications and workload had significantly impacted wait times and that it is out of the control of current assessment-of-need staff to meet statutory timeframes. A 20-year-old Act is in place, yet statutory timeframes cannot be met because the Government cannot plan properly or provide the essential staff required. The waiting lists are getting longer year on year and are not decreasing, even with the Louth assessment-of-need team outsourcing the vast majority of assessments to HSE-approved private providers. Staff are overloaded with work, parents are up the walls with stress trying to get their children assessed to ensure they can at least apply for the supports they require and behind each and every one of these damning statistics is another child with disabilities suffering further permanent damage as a result of the Government continuing to break its own laws. The response of the Government to this and every other issue seems to be to say it is spending more on the problem, but it is obviously not investing wisely given that waiting lists are getting longer year on year. I have to mention the teenage wonder girl Cara Darmody for all of her campaigning to highlight this issue. Once again, she has to embarrass and shame the Government to act and, once again, it cannot even get that right. Today's announcements do not action Cara's demands for an emergency response for recruiting therapists. Until the Government starts listening to the strongest and bravest 15-year-old girl I know, it will continue to damage and fail the tens of thousands of children around this country waiting for assessments of need.

Earlier today, I received information that the State has spent over €7.2 million of taxpayers' money to defend the State against the families of children with disabilities who have not received an assessment of need under the statutory timeframe. In 2022, the High Court ruled that the Government broke the law by providing 90-minute assessments instead of comprehensive assessments of need. Since then, there have been 932 legal cases taken by parents of children who did not receive assessments of need under the 2005 Disability Act. The State has paid solicitors and counsel over €7.2 million to defend it against these families and to defend the indefensible. This is €7.2 million that could have been spent on providing assessments of need or decreasing the time the 18,000 children currently waiting on assessments of need will have to wait. I know the Minister of State has only been in the role for a couple of weeks and I genuinely wish her well. Nobody on this side of the House wants to see her fail because it is an issue that affects everybody. However, she has to admit that the situation is stark. In our area, Dublin Mid-West, there are 1,618 children waiting for assessments of need. How many of those children received an assessment of need under the statutory timeframe laid out under the Disability Act? Not one child in Dublin Mid-West has received an assessment of need on time. This is truly scandalous. Not only is the Government breaking the law; it is not allowing children every chance to reach their developmental milestones. I do not think it is too much to ask the Government to stop fighting children with disabilities and breaking the law and to allow children every chance to reach their full potential.

I want to say hello to Cara Darmody and her family. I begin by sending my solidarity to families waiting for an assessment for their child or children. At the start of October, there were more than 8,000 children waiting on assessments of need in the CHO 7 area. Almost 1,600 of those children have been waiting more than two years to be seen. There are almost twice as many children waiting in one area alone than there have been assessments carried out State-wide so far this year. There is a long wait to access support services once a child receives an assessment. The waiting list to access services in the CDNT in Chamber House in Tallaght is now more than 56 months, or almost five years. I met Katherine Zappone in 2016 while going into Chamber House to try to find out what was wrong. At that time, the assessment was that the team was missing key personnel. Would it surprise the Minister of State to hear that there are still missing key personnel in the team? Parents are being forced to find spaces and go down the extremely expensive private services route. The Government has become so used to relying on private healthcare to pick up the slack that it has forgotten that not everyone can afford to go private and there is limited capacity in the private system. During the debate, Deputies have spoken about a broken system. It is a broken system that is contributing, in many cases, to broken families. Thousands of children in just one area are spending their childhoods waiting and waiting for assessments so that they can access speech and language or occupational therapies. This is wrong. The system is broken. It needs to be fixed.

I commend the amazing strength and determination of Cara Darmody. Her continued campaign brings her back to the Dáil for 50 hours this week in a miserable, cold December. Unfortunately, I think she will be given the same promises that other Ministers have given her previously. I genuinely hope they are not false promises. Why do I call these false promises? The fact Cara has come back to camp outside Kildare Street again is not because she enjoys sitting outside in the freezing cold, in the wind and rain, but because this Government has failed and failed again. It is a bit like the housing plan we were talking about last week. There is another new Minister and another new plan. The CDNTs have failed to provide adequate support for our children who need supports. I coach a group called the falcons in St. Peregrines. It is just a group of parents who are coaches. We do our best to provide some fun and a chance for the kids to play and meet each other. I meet those parents all of the time. I know the hurt, pain, stress and anxiety they go through because the waiting list for the CDNT for Blakestown is 72 months. They get the assessments but where are the supports they require? They are virtually non-existent. The CDNT acknowledges that it is short-staffed and loses staff after a few months. Unfortunately, that means the process has to start all over again when these staff have built up relationships. The parents do not want hear any more reasons for this. They just want the problem solved. They want the supports they and their children need when they need it. Imagine the outrage in society if a child went to Temple Street or the new children's hospital and the doctors said they could not fix the child's broken leg because it did not have the staff, so the child should come back in 72 months. It would bring the Government down. If it is unacceptable for young people in that case, why is it not unacceptable for children with different abilities and specific needs? We need to stop the excuses and end the waiting lists. Those children need that support and they need it now.

It will not be lost on anybody that this Government wastes no time whatsoever in showing up for those at the top. It does not waste a second when it comes to big tax breaks for corporate landlords, developers and banks. However, when it comes to children with disabilities, the Government comes in, as the previous Minister did, and talks about "complexity". The word "complexity" is actually shorthand for Government failure because this issue is not as complex as the Government presents it. In 2005, a previous government put in place an Act which set out very clearly what needs to be done for children with disabilities. Each child - I do not see how this is in any way controversial or complex - should have an assessment that examines and puts in place the health and education needs of each child. At the end of the year, a composite report would then be given to the Government that looks at what is the overall ask and what resources or capacity needs to be put in place to meet that need. In reality, what has happened is not complex. It is Government failure to put in the capacity. We now have reached a crisis point, where neither the assessments nor the services are given to children. The excuse from the Government is that it is very complex, it is beyond the Government and it is more difficult than it thought. The problem is the Government did not train the therapists that were needed and it did not put in place the capacity. Children cannot be blamed for that. Parents cannot be blamed for that. The only people who can be blamed are the people who made a mess of it, which is the Government. I listened to the Minister's opening speech and read today's announcement on the Department's website. We have seen a lot of this before - providing substandard assessments of need, yellow-pack assessments of need and shortcuts to what children require. That is what I hear. There are then the assessment officers. We do not really know what the assessment officers will actually do. I can tell the Minister of State that parents and children will judge this Government on its actions, not promises, because they have had a bellyful of those. I will very cautiously approach what the Government says on this issue, bearing in mind all of the false promises made to children and their families in the past.

Well said.