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LAST UPDATE | 20 May
TAOISEACH MICHEÁL MARTIN has said the HSE is “not in a position to fulfil the law right now” when it comes to meeting the statutory six-month timeline for providing assessments of needs for children with disabilities.
His remark comes as teenage campaigner Cara Darmody began a 50-hour protest outside the Dáil today over the Government’s failure to deliver the assessments on time.
Over 15,000 children are currently waiting for an assessment, which is a formal procedure, set out under the Disability Act 2005, that identifies a child’s health and educational needs.
Today, the HSE said it is projecting that that number will grow to over 25,000 by the end of the year if the service is not provided with additional funding and resources, such as occupational and speech and language therapists.
The issue dominated the Leaders’ Question slot in Dáil Éireann today, where the Taoiseach was quizzed on the State’s failure to deliver assessments on time.
Social Democrats acting leader Cian O’Callaghan asked the Taoiseach when the State will start to comply with its own law and deliver assessments within the six-month statutory time period.
In response, the Taoiseach said:
“The HSE is not in a position to fulfil the law right now. You know that, and I know”.
The Taoiseach told the Dáil that the existing legislation needs to be updated “to ensure that therapists are directed and streamlined to provide services to children more quickly than currently is the case”.
“We have a finite number of therapists currently in the country. The real objective has to be to use those therapists optimally in providing services to children,” he said.
Since 2022, some in Government have spoken about the need to amend the legislation following a High Court case that ruled assessments were not comprehensive enough.
The court ruled that children needed assessments that would take over 30 hours, which had knock-on impacts on resources.
This ruling was accepted by the HSE at the time, and the model of assessments was changed.
However, the following year, then-Health Minister Stephen Donnelly said he regretted not amending the legislation immediately after the High Court ruling to allow for the previous model of assessments to continue.
Donnelly argued that the previous model was working well for children and noted that waiting lists were falling at the time.
14-year-old Cara has two brothers with autism and profound intellectual disabilities, Neil (12) and John (8), and has spearheaded a campaign to compel the Government to improve access to services for people with disabilities.
Darmody was joined outside Leinster House today by leaders of the Opposition parties, where she thanked them for putting a motion forward on the issue this evening: “Your support is why we are going to win.”
Speaking at a press conference on the matter today, Disability Minister Norma Foley said she has addressed Cabinet colleagues and requested they tackle the “disinformation” around the requirement for parents to have an assessment of needs to access services.
She said the system is “broken” and that it is “absolutely ridiculous” that 30% of applicants go through the 90-hour assessments to find out that their child does not have additional needs.
Foley said an “all of government approach” is underway to cut back on the waiting list through “streamlining” the system and making an “abridged” alternative for families seeking to access services.
She said there would be a recruitment drive for psychologists to ensure applicants are seen as soon as possible.
Additionally, the minister said, every department will be directed to stop recommending that an assessment of needs is required to access services.
Cara Darmady and her father Mark have asked that ministers treat the situation as a national emergency.
“The whole thinking is wrong,” Mark told The Journal. “They’re not treating it like it’s a house on fire…So the problem here is it’s like a burst pipe. If it’s burst, you get a plumber now, today.”
Asked if she would declare it a crisis, the minister said that she, others in Cabinet and the CEO of the HSE are “very clear” that addressing this is a “priority”.
Just 7% of assessments are completed within the legal six-month timeframe. Darmody said the laws are being “systematically broken” for almost a decade.
Darmody said: “It is not acceptable in my book – how can the Cabinet expect teenagers like me to obey the laws of our land, when they are the ones that break a law openly and with impunity.”
The HSE has told Labour TD Alan Kelly that its current projections indicate that the waiting list could grow by up to 25,000 people by the end of this year.
Completed assessments increased by 60% during the first three months of this year, the HSE said, attributing it to a recent injection of funding of over €4m.
Asked today if funding solutions will be presented to the HSE in the near future, Minister Foley said that the numbers on the waiting list are “increasing all the time”.
She said the Government’s focus will be on reducing the number of people who are placed on the waiting list through front-loading the system with better and more access to therapeutic services.
Darmody’s protest today comes as the Dáil is set to hear hours of statements on the issue alongside a cross-party Opposition motion on the issue following a successful campaign from the teenager.
On top of additional funding, Cara is also asking for the establishment of a task force to examine and remove barriers and bring forward additional funding.
Includes reporting by Eoghan Dalton
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