Before I move on to the next speaker, I welcome the Shandon Retired Group who are guests of Deputy Marie Sherlock.

We also have guests from Grangecon. There is a very special man in the Gallery who is seven years of age today. Happy birthday Ben and enjoy your visit to Leinster House today. They are guests of Deputy Timmins. They are all very welcome and I hope they enjoy their visit.

I support Senator Harmon in everything she has said. I want to raise the ongoing crisis in assessments of need and the impact this is having on families in Cavan and Monaghan. Earlier this year, I was helping a mother whose young son had been offered a place in an early intervention preschool. She should have been delighted but instead she was under huge pressure because to take up the place she needed an assessment of need. We contacted the HSE and I followed up again and again but we received the same template over and over as a reply. He was on a waiting list with no indication of when he would be seen and no recognition of the fact that every week matters to a family who is really desperate.

At the end of March there were more than 21,000 children waiting longer than the legal six-month deadline for an assessment of need. In Cavan and Monaghan alone there are 578 overdue assessments. I commend Cara Darmody on continuing to shine a light on this issue. She is absolutely right when she says children are missing the window for early intervention. We all know that the earlier a child gets support, the better the outcome. These early years are precious. Once they are gone there is no getting them back. Many parents simply cannot wait any longer. They take out loans, borrow from family and empty their savings to pay privately for assessments. This should never happen.

If the HSE cannot provide an assessment within the legal timeframe, then the State should meet the cost of a private assessment. The parent I spoke about got an assessment within two weeks when she went private and it cost €1,800. Parents should not have to pay out of their own pocket because the State has failed to meet its own legal obligations. Disability teams continue to be short-staffed while many newly qualified therapists and psychologists cannot get the supervised placements and recognised experience they need to practise. This is one issue the Government could address. All families want is for their children to get the support they need when they need it and not years after the opportunity for early intervention has gone.