Paul Murphy (Dublin South West, RISE) | Oireachtas source

The way that children with additional needs are failed by this State is nothing short of scandalous. I have no end of parents contacting me who have been on waiting lists for long times and with no end in sight. What it comes down to is the understaffing and underfunding of our health service and an absence of therapists. I will give one particular example, namely, the massive shortage of speech and language therapists in the Tallaght and Dublin south west area. Multiple parents have shared their stories with me. I will give some of them. One quote comes from a parent who said:

The waiting lists for our area are much longer than the children she's in class with and live in areas where they aren't having to wait. Unfortunately the children of Tallaght are disadvantaged due to long waiting lists.

Another parent said:

At the time of assessment she was the only paediatric speech therapist in the Ballyboden primary care centre. There should be 4. It took several months to fill one position and that is all that they could fill due to an embargo on staffing which seems insane to me as I thought the government were full of promises to address services for children's disabilities.

The HSE has told me that there is currently a level of 50% in staff vacancies in the speech and language therapy department for the Dublin south city area. It is not only a problem in speech and language therapy but also in other areas. I get answers back from the HSE. I have one here which says that the HSE is actively recruiting for vacancies in the CDNT. The parent in this case was told by a woman who is on the front line that there is a recruitment embargo and there is no recruitment.

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