Departmental Legal Cases
Dail Éireann — 2026-09-17
============================================================

Emer Higgins (FG), Dublin Mid-West

There has been significant increase in demand for assessment of need, AON, in recent years, reflecting both the increase in population and the number of families exploring all options to access services for their child. Unfortunately, demand has outpaced the capacity of the system to respond, resulting in long waiting lists for children to receive their assessment of need.
The Disability Act sets out grounds under which applicants may make a complaint regarding assessment of need, including completion within statutory timeframes. Over the past years, there has been an increasing amount of litigation seeking enforcement orders under the Act.
It is important to note that if AONs are not provided within the statutory timeframe applicants can use the statutory complaints and redress system. Therefore, they apply to the Circuit Court for an enforcement order as opposed to the High Court judicial review process.
The total legal spend for the period from 2020 to 2025 is €498,072. These are the HSE's own fees and do not include the legal spend of the parties who bring claims against the HSE, which have been paid by the HSE. That is because these are discharged by the State Claims Agency.
Inability to meet the rising demand for AON is resulting in significant financial cost to the State but, more importantly, is causing delay and distress to children and families who should have access to supports as early as possible. It is very clear that change is needed. There has been progress over the past two years with a noticeable increase in the number of completed applications. Over 5,900 assessments of need were completed last year, which is a 43% increase compared to the previous year, and 3,043 assessment reports have been completed in the first six months of this year. This improvement must continue and it must continue at pace.
In addition, significant legislative and operational work is under way to improve the AON process and reduce waiting times.

---

Source: Houses of the Oireachtas. Licensed under CC BY 4.0 (https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/). The Official Report is revised after first publication; the fetch timestamp below identifies the version quoted.

Record URI: https://data.oireachtas.ie/akn/ie/debateRecord/dail/2026-09-17/debate/main
Retrieved: 2026-09-28T05:50:48+00:00
Sitting date: 2026-09-17