Disability (Amendment) Bill 2026: Second Stage
Dail Éireann — 2026-09-23
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Ruth Coppinger (PBP), Dublin West

Before I speaking on this Bill today, I got the views of a solicitor who takes many cases on behalf of parents. This is their initial perception.
This Bill amounts to a significant watering down of the rights of children with a disability. The assessment report under the 2005 Act has been described by the courts as the gold standard. It is supposed to be comprehensive and evidence based and set out the child's needs and the services required to meet these needs if costs were not an issue at all. Under the 2005 Act, an assessment report had to include a statement of the nature and extent of the disability. This was hugely important to families as the report set out the extent of the child's need. Now, all that will be provided is "a statement of the substantial restriction to which the applicant is subject".
The Minister of State will agree that is a huge difference. We need to break the news to families, disability organisations and advocates that they need to get agitated about this. In recent years, one of the biggest features of society has been the activism of disabled people and their carers. There was the Green Paper that had to be withdrawn by the previous Government. The care referendum was rejected because of issues around disability rights and there have been campaigns all around the country for school places appropriate to children's needs, by parents, mainly mothers.
It seems that the assessments of need rule really bothers the Government because it gives parents the right to have it done within six months.
We all know that 90% of these assessments are not done within six months, leaving the Government looking really terrible. In introducing this, the Government is now trying to create a new avenue that would get rid of that terrible vista. These assessment reports will be much less comprehensive and less thorough. They are clearly designed to reduce the waiting lists but what will they actually deliver? As has been said, there are huge concerns about people not being classified as disabled in the first place under this legislation. The six-month rule definitely galls and pains the Government.
Some 9,300 children currently await a first appointment with a CDNT. The number has fallen but it is still very high. In Dublin 15, which makes up most of the Dublin West constituency, a task force on special education had to be set up. One of the findings of that task force was that 40% of referrals to the CDNT were still just that - referrals. I heard another TD talk about the waiting list in Cork. I do not mean to make comparisons or to have a poverty competition but in one of the CDNTs in Dublin 15, as of last year, the waiting list was up to seven years long. It is one of the highest by far because of the youthful population. The other one was better.
How is this going to be addressed? The crux of this is that the Government is not able to recruit the professionals who are needed. The reason it cannot do so is that they have fled to the private sector. That is where most of the people are. What is ironic is that they are actually doing these assessments of need privately and parents are paying for them. They have also fled the country because they cannot afford to live here because of the chronic housing crisis that this Government and previous governments have not dealt with. They cannot afford to have a decent life here. Until that is addressed, the CDNT lists are just going to keep on increasing.
I have a million pages of notes here that I wanted to bring in but I will just say that this is an attack on children's rights. Who are these assessment officers? I do not have time to develop that point but perhaps the Minister of State would answer that question because it is not stated in the legislation who the people who are going to do these assessments are.

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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