Assessment of needs backlog
Deputy Whitmore raised the impact of the investigations programme on families and the unregulated private psychology sector. The Minister of State said she had met CORU repeatedly and that funding for assessment hubs had been secured.
Last night "RTÉ Investigates" made for difficult viewing for parents of children all across the country. Not only did it, once again, highlight the scandal of the incredible waiting lists for children awaiting assessment of needs, it also exposed the incredible situation that, when a parent is unable to get the supports from the HSE in the public system and they manage to scrape together the money to go privately, what they are doing is entering the wild west of healthcare in Ireland where anybody can call themselves a psychologist. The Minister of State, Deputy Rabbitte, mentioned that the Minister will be meeting with CORU. The question for the Taoiseach and for the Minister is, what has taken so long? This was first mooted in 2017. It was raised as an issue with the Minister in 2020. Now we are a situation where the Minister is meeting with the regulatory body. What has the Government been doing?
Comment on this
I thank Deputy Whitmore for raising that. In fact, I have met with CORU three times over the past 18 months to address a number of issues of what we have covered here today.
On the Deputy's primary question about assessment of needs, we have secured €11 million. We will be putting in assessment hubs so that we can clear that backlog as soon as possible.