Psychological Assessments
Dail Éireann — 2025-12-18
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Emer Higgins (FG), Dublin Mid-West

I will. The reforms announced last week are basically a six-pronged approach. First is the statutory element and we published the heads of the Bill, which will go to the disability matters committee for pre-legislative scrutiny and for further consultation. That is aimed at standardising and streamlining the assessment of need process to make sure that every child, no matter where they are in the State, gets the same approach. The second thing we have done is made the decision - this will be part of the statutory guidelines - that decisions will be communicated earlier to parents.
When a decision is arrived at as to whether or not a child has a disability that decision should and must be communicated to parents at the point at which it is made. That does not currently seem to be the case. We are now providing that for parents. Single point of access is coming in through the HSE. That is the process by which there will be no wrong door. The Deputy spoke about primary care and the different elements of the health service. Unfortunately some people’s experience is that they wait on the waiting list, they get to the top and they are told they are in the wrong queue and have to go to the bottom of another waiting list. This will be the end of that approach. This is a single point of access to make sure we are supporting parents and families through the right channel for them.
On top of that the HSE is initiating a new autism protocol and assessment process specifically for children who are displaying autistic traits. At the moment 45% of children who go through our AON process get a diagnosis of autism. This is responding to that need which is developing and evolving.
On the in-reach teams, there will be 11 in-reach teams next year and a further nine the following year, bringing it to 20 and there are 20 REO areas. That is the rationale for how they are being recruited and where they will be based. There will be 44 people hired next year for those in-reach teams of four per team. They will be there to support both single point of access and also the autism protocol and assessment process. We are also hiring more into our CDNTs. We are outsourcing more assessments of need. We will outsource 6,000 assessments of need next year and there is also the education element which the Deputy raised. The Minister for education has confirmed she is committed to putting together a proposal that will phase out the requirement of an assessment of need for a special class or special school and to formulate that proposal in consultation with key stakeholders including unions in quarter 1 and bring that proposal to the Taoiseach and the Cabinet committee on disability.

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Record URI: https://data.oireachtas.ie/akn/ie/debateRecord/dail/2025-12-18/debate/main
Retrieved: 2026-08-14T04:54:29+00:00
Sitting date: 2025-12-18