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.

Sentiment score: -0.02