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.

Sentiment score: -0.05

Well said.

Sentiment score: 0.27