Disability (Amendment) Bill 2026: Second Stage Dail Éireann — 2026-09-23 ============================================================ Ruairí Ó Murchú (SF), Louth On some level, this is a technical Bill, but because it deals with assessment of need, the Minister will understand that there is a huge level of trepidation and worry out there about the delivery of a service that has seen abject failure over many years. We know that the reason this is being tackled is because, at last count at the end of June, we had 23,282 children on the waiting list for an assessment of need. That was 1,286 in Louth. That is a phenomenal amount of families. We all know that even those who have got an assessment of need do not necessarily get the service plan in the time required, nor do they receive the therapies and supports, which is the biggest issue that remains for families. I would like to think when we are introducing legislation on assessment of need that there would be some glimpse of light in terms of how we are going to deliver. Regarding this legislation, there are a number of questions. When the Minister refers to withdrawal from the list, we would all like to know what the interaction is going to be. We understand removing someone because they are deceased or are outside the State and enough interaction has been had with them to ensure that that is definite. However, where further information is being looked for over the six-month period, we would like clarity about the interaction. Too many times as constituency TDs, we have seen families where there is an element of chaos, even dysfunction, and other things happening in life, meaning they have missed appointments and are then dropped off some of these services. We need to make sure that we are not allowing for something like that. I would request that. We need to know about the statutory guidelines and when we will see them, and ensure there is a consistent, streamlined approach. We all want to see that. The consistent approach would be the best approach. We have all spoken before about the entire process, from assessment to therapies, that we would like to see streamlined. I request that that information come as soon as possible. I know Deputy Quinlivan as Chair of the disability committee has requested a briefing and I believe it is to happen next Tuesday. It is vital that we have that level of information. I get fed up at this stage having a conversation about the size of the AON list. Particularly when dealing with constituents and families who are going through absolute anguish at times and do not necessarily have a child who is having difficulties in school but cannot get the very obvious therapies that he or she needs, all I want is for there to be somebody to talk to about this entire process. I heard Mr. Bernard Gloster say that before. This is being done alongside the idea of the autism intervention protocol and assessment service. I accept what the Minister says, in that there is no removal of the six-month right, because that is one of the few rights that people have and they do not want to let it go. There should be an assessment of need within six months. I do not think anyone would have an issue if someone who was deemed to need an autism assessment would have that, as long as we are talking about something that improves the service that they are going to get and that he or she actually gets the therapies that are required. Unfortunately, across all of this, we do not see anything about an increase in the number of occupational therapists, speech and language therapists, psychologists and physiotherapists, who are absolutely necessary. In-reach teams are to be filled at this point in time. When will we see that service up and running? I have always thought it would be incredibly difficult to see delivery on the numbers that are missing from primary care and children's disability network teams, CDNTs, while also trying to fill this third stratum to deal with the autism assessments. I would like to make sure that we have whatever detail is needed for this legislation. We will need further detail about what can be provided. In conversations like this, I often think of my own son, Toirleach, who is autistic. I think of the over and back that my wife would have had. He was in with the early intervention team, which later became the CDNT. He was in primary care, then back into the CDNT. I have said before that St. Joseph's National School and Ó Fiaich College have been his saviours. I will always believe in in-school therapies. I would like for us to have a more fundamental conversation about the Disability Act. We were talking to those occupational therapists, speech and language therapists, physiotherapists and psychologists about how to deliver a system and a service that worked. There are an awful lot of questions to answer, but at the minute, we are talking about breaking the law and failure to deliver. --- 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/2026-09-23/debate/main Retrieved: 2026-09-28T05:50:49+00:00 Sitting date: 2026-09-23