Ivana Bacik (Dublin Bay South, Labour) | Oireachtas source

This morning, the well-known 14-year-old disability rights campaigner from Ardfinnan, County Tipperary, Cara Darmody, held her monster meeting rally outside Leinster House. Many of us attended and there were many parents there expressing their incredible distress and dissatisfaction at the Government's failure to provide their children with timely assessments of needs and proper services and appropriate school places. Cara is calling on the Government to give a State apology for the pain and suffering that families have experienced with these delays. She is calling for the Government to sign the optional protocol to the UN Convention on the Rights of Persons with Disabilities. Of course, she is calling on Government to stop the HSE from breaking the assessments of needs law and ensure that children are assessed in a timely manner. We know thousands of children are still waiting on assessments. Cara is here with her father, Mark, in the Public Gallery. Will the Tánaiste commit to her today on behalf of the Government to those three asks? Cara has met with the Taoiseach on a number of occasions-----

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