An tOrd Gnó - Order of Business
Dail Éireann — 2026-03-18
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George Lawlor (LAB), Wexford

I want to talk about Simona Demyter, a young 20-year-old Wexford woman who in 2019 was diagnosed with an extremely rare illness. Since that time, she has relied on a wheelchair but has outgrown it, the current one being too small. Last October, an occupational therapist called, did all the assessments and told her she would have a new wheelchair in a few weeks, but she never received it. In January, a wheel broke and she was told by the technician who came to fix it that it was unsafe and she should not use it any more. The family then discovered the reason for the delay was that the occupational therapist went on extended leave and never passed on the documentation. The file effectively disappeared from the system. Eventually, after the intervention of my colleague, Councillor Vicky Barron in Wexford, the family was contacted by the children's disability network team, CDNT, and told that another therapist was on leave and nothing could be done for weeks. However, the did have a solution, in that it would fix the wheel of the old, unsuitable and unsafe wheelchair. This young woman has now been confined to her family's sitting room for the past two months. This is just one example of a dysfunctional, crazy system that serves nobody.

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Record URI: https://data.oireachtas.ie/akn/ie/debateRecord/dail/2026-03-18/debate/main
Retrieved: 2026-08-14T04:54:45+00:00
Sitting date: 2026-03-18