Parents of children waiting for vital special needs assessments are questioning whether the State expects them to wait “forever” for support.
Newstalk exclusively revealed this morning that the number of children waiting for an Assessment of Need has increased by nearly 1,600 in the space of just three months.
Internal HSE documents show that by the end of September, 12,722 children with additional needs had been waiting longer than six months for the vital assessment.
That’s up from the 11,131 children who were overdue an assessment at the end of June, and up from 8,900 at the end of last year.
Under the Disability Act, children are legally entitled to get an assessment completed within six months.
On The Pat Kenny Show, Ciara Reilly said she first applied for an Assessment of Need for her daughter Doireann back when she was two-years-old.
Three-and-a-half years have since passed, and Doireann, like thousands of other children, is still waiting.
Ms Reilly told Pat that she has been forced to pay for private therapy for Doireann, while also carrying out at-home therapy herself.
"I want the State to tell me, is this going to be forever?" she said.
"Doireann is always going to be autisitc; she is always going to have an intellectual disability and she is always going to need support.
"What if I wasn't here? What help would she have?"
Ms Reilly said she receives a domiciliary care allowance and nappies for her daughter - but this just "scratches the surface" of Doireann's support needs.
"I want to see a politician or a political party truly stand up to the HSE and to disability services and say this is not working," she said.
"Unless we deal with the blocks – the people who are an issue in the system - it will never be addressed."
EXCLUSIVE: 12,722 children with additional needs are overdue an assessment of need as of the end of September - a rise of ~1,600 in just 3 months.
Disability Act contains statutory framework whereby an AON must be completed within six months of being requested or referred. #GE24
— Andrew Lowth (@AndrewLowth1) November 21, 2024
Charlotte Cahill, another parent with a child on the waiting list, told the show she paid €12,500 for private speech therapy last year.
"Speech therapy for Kyra is honestly the most important therapy that she needs," Ms Cahill said.
"Kyra’s frustration and anxiety and behaviours are all communication.
"They’re a way she non-verbally communicates distress or a want or a need and having speech therapy brings all of that down.
"It helps her anxiety come down and it helps the self-injurious behaviour come down."
81% of children overdue have been waiting nine months or more for an assessment of need.
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Featured image shows a child doing occupational therapy, 25/05/2017, Alamy
