In November six years ago a referendum was put to the people about children. We were told it was historic and that its aim was to establish a child-centred approach to protecting all children. Another aim was to support families who were struggling rather than allow crisis situations to develop. Part of Article 42A inserted in the Constitution recognises that all children have rights and pledges to uphold those rights by law. On the ground, however, that admirable intent has not been achieved six years later. The assessment of needs for children with disabilities is not being provided. The Disability Act 2005 provides that an assessment should be carried out within three months of it being requested, but the latest figures supplied to my colleague, Deputy Murphy O'Mahony, and to RTÉ news illustrate that there are more than 3,850 children with suspected disabilities who have still not had an assessment.

The Minister of State at the Department of Health, Deputy Finian McGrath, announced in 2016 that 128 disability care teams would be put in place and that they would resolve the waiting times. In 2018 there are only 56 such teams in place and, in fact, the waiting lists have grown longer. There are 37,229 people in the country on speech and language therapy waiting lists. Some 15,000 of them are waiting for the crucial first assessment. A further 7,894 are waiting for their first treatment and 14,300 are waiting for further therapy. Separately, there are 31,000 people waiting for occupational therapy and over half of these, more than 16,800, are children who await a first assessment. More than 6,000 of that 16,800 have been waiting longer than one year for the crucial first assessment.

As one can imagine, this is causing huge frustration, anger and worry for parents and families. Where is the child-centred approach promised in 2012? For those who can afford it, they are paying hundreds of euro just to get a diagnosis. Even in the public system, there are inconsistencies in the treatment across the country, when one can get it. How can the Government stand over this inaction and lack of delivery in any improvement of waiting times for assessments under the Disability Act 2005? Does the Taoiseach believe this situation is defensible and acceptable and what plans does he, as Taoiseach, have in place to ensure these waiting lists are prioritised?

Fáilte romhat ar ais.

I thank the Ceann Comhairle. First, I am very proud and pleased to have been a member of a party, and of a Government, that enshrined children's rights in our Constitution, and did so for the first time. In the years since then, we have been doing everything we can to realise those rights and to make them real in our laws and society and not just in the words in our Constitution. Taking the area of education, for example, children going to school this September are in classrooms with the lowest ever pupil-teacher ratio.

That has nothing to do with the referendum.

A record €10 billion is being invested in education this year. In the health area, children with profound disabilities, 40,000 of whom are in receipt of the domiciliary care allowance, DCA, now have a medical card as of right. They do not have to be means-tested based on their parents' income. When the party opposite was in power children, even though they had profound disabilities, were not provided with free healthcare or medical cards because their parents were working, or had an average, or in some cases below average, income. We have changed that. We have also brought in free GP care for the under sixes. In the area of the Department of Children and Youth Affairs, a dedicated Department set up in recent years, we have brought in two years of free preschool, giving children early childhood education which is so beneficial for them.

In the last year or so, we brought in subsidised childcare, reducing the cost of childcare for lots of parents around the country. We all know the enormous burden that childcare costs are on families. Those subsidies help to make a difference and we propose to continue them in the years ahead. Also, in terms of leave for parents in order that they can spend more time with their children, we brought in paid paternity benefit for the first time. I appreciate there are areas where there are still enormous difficulties and areas where more work needs to be done.

In regard to the assessments under the Disability Act 2005, to which the Deputy referred, the number of applications has risen steadily since it it was enacted. There were 1,138 applications in 2007. However, in 2017, there were 5,839 applications, such that in the space of ten years, there was an almost five-fold increase in the number of applications. The system is struggling to deal with this level of demand. There is a new standing operating procedure for the assessment of need but it has been delayed due to necessary discussions and consultations with the professional bodies. This process is now entering its final stages and we hope that if we can get it agreed it will make a real difference. Also, efforts to progress the establishment of disability network teams around the country have been delayed as well, due to deliberations with Fórsa and with voluntary providers on the appointment of managers of these teams but an agreement has now been made and this will allow recruitment to start in the next month for some of the community healthcare organisations.

Does the Taoiseach get it? Does he get what it is like for parents and children who are waiting on those lists? The Taoiseach spoke about standard operating procedures and new rules for the disabilities assessment. Does he actually get what it is like to be waiting on a list for over a year, 7,000 of them for an initial occupational therapy, OT, assessment? Does he get what it is like to be one of the 15,000 children waiting for a first assessment for speech and language therapy? Early intervention is crucial and key to getting a positive pathway in this regard. The Taoiseach speaks of standard operating procedures and technical matters. He does not get what it is like for parents and children in this situation.

The Minister of State with responsibility for disabilities, who is known for leaking from Cabinet meetings, is the captain of the disability ship in this country and he is not delivering. As long as he remains captain of that ship, that ship is the Titanic. It is time that the Taoiseach took charge and gave some hope to the 37,000 children waiting for speech and language therapy and to the 31,000 waiting for occupation therapy, OT. He needs to stop talking about standard operating procedures and to start talking about people.

Of course I get it and everyone on this side of the House gets it. The Deputy and his party do not have a monopoly on either empathy or compassion.

Lots of empathy but no delivery.

All of us do constituency work and all of us have friends and family. All of us are aware of plenty of individual cases on which all of us work hard to try to get results for parents. Instead of coming in here trying to pretend that somehow he has a monopoly on understanding or a greater empathy or compassion than people on this side of the House, the Deputy could come in here with solutions-----

The National Treatment Purchase Fund, NTPF.

Childish comments.

-----but he did not do that in either of his contributions. The Minister of State, Deputy Finian McGrath, is working extremely hard on this. There is a large budget of €1.8 billion for disabilities. As I mentioned, we are putting in the procedures and recruiting the extra staff we need.