Disability (Amendment) Bill 2026: Second Stage
Dail Éireann — 2026-09-23
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Paul Nicholas Gogarty (IND), Dublin Mid-West

I welcome aspects of the Disability (Amendment) Bill 2026. The Minister of State can argue that it is absolutely required, but in another way it is just a reflection of ongoing State failure. For over 20 years, it could be argued that the State has breached its own laws under the Disability Act 2005, which has left so many thousands of vulnerable children without access to services. In this context, we could call any sort of move towards a needs-based approach a positive step because a child should not need a complex medical label just to get their basic speech and language therapy sessions.
Giving the HSE the power to get rid of the defunct applications from the list will give a more accurate picture of the backlog and will reduce the backlog to a degree but the backlog will still be massive. This Bill does not address the actual historical lack of services. The law stipulates that an assessment must take place within six months and yet the reality on the ground, as others have mentioned, is different. Groups are saying different things but the statistics indicate a wait of about 24 to 27 months and in some cases three to five years in individual worst cases. As others have said, it has been estimated that roughly 21,000 children are overdue assessments in the country.
I acknowledge that the State has spent a lot of money on services but the State has also spent about €23 million on legal fees fighting parents in courts and that money could have been put into the front-line services. Groups like Inclusion Ireland and AsIAm have repeatedly pointed out that the change in the rules does not mean anything when we still have a 30% vacancy rate across the children's disability network teams. Those teams need to be filled.
Deputy Seán Crowe raised an issue in this Chamber relating to one particular area in Tallaght in CHO 7. The constituency I share with the Minister of State, Deputy Higgins, including areas like Saggart, Rathcoole, Lucan, Palmerstown and Clondalkin, has one of the worst bottlenecks in the State. I believe it was Chamber House that Deputy Crowe referenced which had a 53% staff vacancy rate, which means a lot of families were left absolutely stranded.
Thousands of families have been told that a child is a so-called "open case" but they have never received a first contact from a therapist. The definition changes here will not create those speech and language therapists. We want to see real investment in staff. I know sometimes in other areas of the health and family support services it has been difficult to actually get to that. I acknowledge there is a challenge. This legislation will not get any educational psychologists or other psychologists for families in Newcastle or Rathcoole.
Others might argue that this Bill is purely a cynical exercise in legal risk management, a way to stop parents from suing the State by lowering the bar in terms of what constitutes an assessment. I do not believe that but the Government will be open to accusations unless it backs up some of the measures in this legislation with increased staffing levels so that we can see the number of people on the waiting list coming down.

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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