Last year, 800 children in my constituency and just around it were awaiting access to children's disability services, and this year the number is 1,200. With the best will in the world, the policy that we have implemented cannot achieve its outcome without an intervention, and that is primarily to do with recruitment but, more importantly, retention of staff. On behalf of those 1,200 children and their parents, I ask the Taoiseach as respectfully as I can to try to intervene or lend assistance to the HSE in the provision of the services. It is becoming a very serious issue which, as he well knows, has very profound impacts on children in the long term.

I thank the Deputy for raising what is a very important issue. Since 2013, the HSE has been developing a progressing-disability policy and programme. In latter years, because of increased resources, it has pursued that. They would argue that has led to what is a holistic, family-orientated model, but that it has diluted services in other areas, particularly in special schools. I have intervened and I have convened meetings of officials in the Departments of Education, Health, and Children, Equality, Disability, Integration and Youth and the Ministers concerned to try to deal with this issue. Recruitment is one aspect of it, policy is another and there is also the nature of interventions. Certainly, there are many families out there who are not happy, correctly so, with the length of time they have to wait.