Health Services
Dail Éireann — 2026-05-06
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Mark Ward (SF), Dublin Mid-West

I thank the Minister of State. She mentioned priorities, triage and how people are assessed. Larry, who is 80 and whom I spoke about, is not priority 1. He is priority 2, and that is why he must wait for six years. Angela, who broke both her hips and has not been up her own stairs in two years, is not priority 1. She is priority 2. Sarah-Jane, who has to rely on her 71-year-old mother to get washed, is also not priority 1. She is priority 2. Whatever this triage system is, it is not working because Larry, Angela and Sarah-Jane are falling through the cracks.
To make a bad situation even worse, if Larry, whom I will use as an example, has to wait for six years for an occupational therapy appointment, he will probably have to wait a further three or four years to get the disabled persons grant from South Dublin County Council. Larry, who is 80 now, could be 90 before he gets the stairlift he badly needs to get up his stairs. That is simply not good enough in a modern society.
The Minister of State spoke about waiting list reductions and said there were 1.3 million appointments. That is absolutely fantastic but the reality in Dublin Mid-West as we speak is that if you live in Palmerstown and are waiting for an appointment for a physiotherapist, you will be left waiting because the service is suspended. A parent of a newborn child will not receive developmental checks for his or her baby if they have to go to Rowlagh health centre. This is because of staff shortages. The average waiting time to see a psychologist for a child in my area is four years. An adult living in Lucan who wants to see a psychologist will not get an appointment. That service is suspended as well.
There are currently over 7,000 children in my area alone who are overdue an appointment for an assessment of needs. If you live in Lucan, you can expect your child to wait over two years for a speech and language therapy appointment. There are also 800 children waiting for an appointment for child and adolescent mental health services. That is just in Dublin Mid-West.
Whatever work is going on behind the scenes really needs to happen quickly because patients, including children, are being left behind. The problems that they have now, because they are not being addressed, are just going to get worse.

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Record URI: https://data.oireachtas.ie/akn/ie/debateRecord/dail/2026-05-06/debate/main
Retrieved: 2026-08-14T04:54:54+00:00
Sitting date: 2026-05-06