Tens of thousands of children with additional needs are being failed by this Government.

Some 14,221 children are overdue an assessment of need. New figures released to me show the scale of the crisis for children trying to access essential therapies. At the end of December, there were more than 41,000 children waiting for an initial assessment for speech, language and occupational therapy. The figures for occupational therapy are particularly stark. Of the more than 22,000 children waiting for their first assessment, nearly half have been waiting for more than a year.

Disability services were an issue that the Tánaiste said he would prioritise when he was Taoiseach. The current Taoiseach has said the same thing. Do these shameful figures reflect an issue that has been prioritised by Government? Is it any wonder that parents are at breaking point? Every day, they endure stress and heartbreak watching their children denied the services they need to reach their full potential. In some cases, children are regressing because they are not getting any supports. Parents are having to scrimp and save trying to pay privately for therapy because the only thing that one is guaranteed in the public system is a place on the waiting list. This level of endemic dysfunction is reflective of a broken and failed system.

More and more parents are being forced into litigation to get an assessment of need for their children. The number of legal actions being taken against the State has skyrocketed. In the past five years alone, the State has spent more than €8 million on cases taken by parents who are fighting for an assessment of need for their children. That €8 million would pay the salaries of 180 occupational therapists or 130 psychologists. Imagine the positive impact that would have on the lives of the tens of thousands of children currently on waiting lists. Instead, it is being spent on cases that families should not be forced to take.

We have been told that, when assessments of need do not adhere to legal timeframes, the litigation strategy of the State is not to contest these cases. Given that 90% of assessments of need are being completed well outside of the legal timeframes, is the Government now effectively saying to families that they need to take legal action to get an assessment of need for their children and vindicate their rights?

I thank Deputy O'Callaghan for raising what is one of the most serious issues we face in the public service and in the lives of children with disabilities, namely, access to therapy provision and the process they go through to gain that access. To be clear, the waiting lists for assessment of need are far too long. This is having a significant negative impact on the lives of children and their families. I accept the point the Deputy has made and I believe it is the right one, in that we need to look at the system. I accept that is going to require a more detailed debate in the House. It is clear to me that, if we have a situation where an assessment of need is lasting on average 36 hours and in some cases up to 90 hours before a child gets any therapy, even when the therapist carrying out the assessment does not believe that level of assessment is required - I will be very careful lest people misrepresent what I am saying, as children have a legal entitlement to an assessment of need, which I believe is vital and I will always defend and cherish that right - it is the rigidity under which that right is being interpreted with regard to the number of hours over which it must be carried out that is causing a significant challenge. I have spoken to many parents across Ireland on this issue, and there is absolutely no point in my view in a therapist spending one third of his or her working week on assessments rather than providing the therapy, particularly when that professional - not me as a politician - believes that his or her time could be better used in the provision of therapy. We have got to get a better model.

The Deputy is right, in that I said this was an area of priority. It is an area of priority. I have met Cara Darmody, the incredible young teenager from Tipperary. She put it up to me very forcefully, articulately and compellingly that we had to do much better. She also made a suggestion that, in fairness, colleagues in the Labour Party tabled a motion on regarding the use of using private money in the short term. We have done that and have seen 2,479 more children get assessments as a result. It is not enough, though, if we have a situation where we continue to have a child needing 36 to 90 hours of assessment when the parent and the therapist do not believe that that time is needed.

I have engaged with the Minister, Deputy Foley, and the Minister of State, Deputy Naughton, on this to see how the current system can be reformed because I believe it is clear to everybody that it is not working. I can reel off figures as to extra investment we have made about extra people we have hired and all of that, but that would miss the point. We need to change the system, which I believe will likely require legislative change, where I would like to work constructively in this House to see if we can get to a point of consensus on that. It is not about the right to assessment, which I will defend. Rather, the rigidity stemming from the 2022 High Court judgment is, in the views of the healthcare providers, the single biggest challenge in terms of the waiting times for children's disability services.

What are parents and families to do now? They are at their wits' end. They are increasingly being told that the only way to get the assessments of need that are needed for their children is to take legal action. The State is not contesting these cases, so the State is effectively putting its hands up and saying it is failing to meet the legal needs of children with additional needs. What is the Tánaiste's advice to parents? Is he telling them that the only thing they can do is to take legal action? Is he advising them to take legal action? What does he say to the parents who are not taking legal action and whose children are being left at the back of the queue? The Government has been talking for quite some time about sorting this out but when will it actually sort this out? This situation is getting worse. Parents are being forced into taking legal cases they do not want to take. What is the Tánaiste's advice to parents now and when is the Government going to sort this out?

That is a fair question but the Deputy would rightly ask me a different question if I came in here and said the State was going to contest the cases, as that would not be a compassionate or decent approach to take on this issue. The law is clear on the 2022 High Court judgment. I am saying three things to the parents. First, we need to reform the system, potentially including the law, and the Minister, Deputy Foley, and the Minister of State, Deputy Naughton, are looking at that. Two, we need to move beyond parents having education over here and health over there and never do the two meet. We have got to implement the programme for Government commitment to put therapy services back in schools, starting with special schools. That process has begun and we are looking to accelerate it. We will be discussing that in our Cabinet committee on disability on Monday. Third, I say to parents that, in the here and now, the initiative I mentioned whereby we are using private capacity and that saw over 2,470 children getting assessments last year who would not otherwise have got them will have its level of funding increased this year to over €10 million.

So parents should take legal cases to access that. Is that what the Tánaiste is saying?

That is not what I am saying.