The programme for Government commits to "Improving the lives of people with disabilities". It states, "we will support people with disabilities in maximising their potential, by removing barriers which impact on access to services, education, work or healthcare". How does that tally with the points raised by Deputy Seamus Healy during Leaders' Questions about the massive and rising waiting lists for access to all sorts of supports? To give one example, a seven year old in my constituency, Harry Whitaker, had an assessment of needs in June 2015. As a result of an error on the HSE's behalf, he was not placed on a waiting list. He made an appeal, which was successful, but he was then placed on the waiting list at the point at which the appeal was successful in March 2016 rather than the point at which he had his needs assessed. The result is that he is still languishing on a waiting list and may be languishing there for another year or more. He has multiple needs and while he waits, he does not have access to speech and language therapy or a special needs assistant in school.

I thank Deputy Murphy for raising this specific issue. If he wishes to provide me with the details, I would be very happy to look into the case. On fulfilling the commitment in the programme for Government, measures we have taken in recent months have included a significant increase in funding for respite and home help, more special needs classes around the country, an automatic entitlement to a medical card for people in receipt of the domiciliary care allowance, extra speech and language therapists working in our early intervention teams, and more than €3.8 billion being spent on illness, disability and carer payments - an increase of almost 4% on the previous year. We are making progress, but we have much more to do. I would be happy to look into that individual case.