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THE GOVERNMENT IS considering reimbursing parents who have had to pay private practitioners to assess their children for what their special needs are, the Taoiseach has said.
It comes after the opposition raised questions about delays for assessments of needs and long waiting lists for services.
Children with a disability are entitled to an assessment of need by the HSE, which should be provided within three months.
Last year, the High Court ruled that the HSE’s approach to providing this assessment was not compliant with the requirements of the Disability Act, 2005.
The HSE had adopted an approach in order to address considerable wait times facing families for assessment and intervention, but accepted the findings of the ruling.
Speaking in the Dail today, Leo Varadkar said that delivering on the assessments of needs requirement was “a real challenge”.
“We shortened the assessment of needs, that help for a period of time, reduced the waiting lists,” he told TDs.
“The court decision meant that we had to reverse that and now that is creating a problem and that is sometimes what happens when you put things in law for good intention, it can backfire on you.”
The junior minister for disability services had indicated to the Labour Party that the Government will consider reimbursing parents for costs when they are forced to use private providers for assessments of needs, in order to bypass long wait times.
Labour leader Ivana Bacik said that Minister of State with Responsibility for Disability Services Anne Rabbitte would make this commitment by August if certain targets are not met.
“I want to commend Minister Rabbitte for committing to bring our Labour proposal to Cabinet if six regional assessment teams are not functional by 1 August, that she was committing the State to pay for assessments of needs of children awaiting more than three months,” Bacik said.
“I think that was a really important, if I may say, a really timely and unexpected, but very welcome intervention by Minister Rabbitte, supported by Minister (for Children Roderic) O’Gorman.”
When Bacik asked the Taoiseach to make the same commitment, Varadkar said he has “no ideological objection whatsoever” to that proposal, and that similar is done in other elements of healthcare.
“That is something we will examine – in fact, we’ve started examining it already,” he said.
“I’ve never had a problem when using private practitioners to provide public services, no problem with that whatsoever. But if we do, we need to get it right, we need to know how much capacity exists in the private sector – I’m told it mightn’t be that much, but we need to know.”
He said that changes to primary legislation may be required and the Government was considering unintended consequences of the measure.
Sinn Fein leader Mary Lou McDonald raised the examples of two young children waiting for their needs to be assessed.
A four-year-old boy who is non-verbal and has sleep difficulties has spent half his life waiting for assessment of needs, she said.
“His mam is worried sick that without this assessment he will miss milestones and won’t be supported to live his best life. She’s worried watching her son who she loves so fiercely slip through the cracks of a system that doesn’t seem capable of meeting his needs,” she said.
She said it was “not acceptable” that the parents of a one-year-old child with autism from Co Tipperary were told by the HSE that the first services available to them would be in 2028.
“Seventeen thousand children are waiting for first contact with their specialist children disability network team, 10,000 of those are waiting over a year,” she said.
Varadkar said that there had been an “enormous transformation” in the children accessing special education in the past 10 years, and that his Government had boosted the number of special needs assistants.
But he admitted that some children are waiting “far too long” for therapies they need, and said the shortfall in vital therapies was down to a shortage of qualified staff.
“I know listing recruitment initiatives can seem somewhat removed from the very real pressures that parents and ultimately their children are facing,” he said.
“But I really can’t emphasise enough how the challenges in our CDNTs are primarily driven by a shortage of staff, how we’re doing all we can to increase the number of staff, to bring in staff from abroad to increase the number of people who are trained.”
So use more tax payers money for the government’s incompetency.this article should read. Government spending more money as it could not do its job properly in rhe first instance.
@Jimmy Donovan: You are being generous with the word spending Jimmy. Wasting would be more accurate.
@Jimmy Donovan: having diagnosis means nothing as there is not much help anyway.
Stop trying to plug the private hospitals ppl can’t afford it just fix the state of play with HSE, do yer job and put an end to it!
@Joanne Stokes: there is no improving it, the hse is a bureaucratic and largely inhumane basket case. It needs replacing
@Sean oSuilleabhain: well yea that much is true mate!
As a mother with a 21 year old vulnerable special needs son whom requires 24/7 one on one full time care and is non verbal. The disability services in Ireland is completely broken, no service for anyone that are not willing to go public with their story. I don’t everything tv, newspaper, radio, magazines etc. and nothing is available. My son has a severe choaking disability and without the correct speech and language therapy could choke to death. I receive €224 euros per week and cannot afford to pay privately for services and in Ireland they way these services are provides is shocking. You have some hope of early intervention from birth to 5 years old, from school age it the special needs schools that provide some of the services but are sparce – however, in Ireland when your special needs person reaches 18 years of age there is no guarantee to any disability services or therapy’s from 18 to 65 years. My son lost all of his therapy services when he left his special needs school in 2019, I have being fighting for life saving speech and language since 2019 to no avail, he lost his transportation all taken away for any new service users coming into the adult system from 2019. He had to wait 7 years to see an orthodontist, he has no OT, no respite so he can socialise with his peers and that means that his dad and I have not had one night out by ourselves without our son for over 10 years now. And at the moment we are 11 weeks from becoming homeless as we receive our termination notice on the 2nd of January we are beyond scared.
@silvery moon: I’m so sorry to hear. The massive injustice towards the kids and the parents was a massive reason why I chose to leave working in the sector, I couldn’t stand going into work everyday, knowing parents were looking for answers, for hope and I couldn’t give any. My frustration was beyond belief and I was only an SNA/social care worker. I have always always had admiration for every single parent I have come across, for the endless battle they fight for their children. I really hope that you are able to get some support and a break sometime soon X
Why dont they just fill the 700 jobs long term instead of using the private sectors is way more expensive. Obviously it can be a short term measure but they do not have a great track record for filling positions. Anyway, it’s getting as difficult to get a private appointment these days too! There should be a set period that psychiatrists, psychologists etc. have to serve before they can go into private practice which would hopefully ensure a constant stream of service.
@Lydia McLoughlin: because the money they offer for salaries is too low
@Helen McKernan: but yet they will pay privately and thats not cheap. Its all short term solutions, pay the salaries. However if work-life balance was better I think some would work for a “good and fair salary” but thats a whole other chain to be fixed.
As a doctor, this clown should be ashamed of himself.As a minister of health his job was to sort this mess out but as usual he couldn’t even manage that. Now as Taoiseah he couldn’t care less.
@Gerry Lamont: of course he doesnt – look at how he crept back into the most serious job in the coalition.. hes entitled, devious and very untouchable
#HowIrelandworks
What this government and all the FG FF govs have done to children on waiting lists and seeking services in the public system amounts to crimes against the humans of this country. Its fitting though that Leo and his team condone children with their skeleton pushing out of their back as this is the country where symphisiotomy was normal
It’s all just one big unfunny joke isn’t it?
Does this not just prove Ireland is a broken place. Shameful. Shur we couldn’t fix it so we’ll just throw money at it and throw money at someone else to fix it.
Was told the waiting list for assessment of autism/adhd is over 3 years. They will accept private assessment but won’t tell you which practitioners they will accept – leaving it in the hands of parents/ guardians. So you could spend almost €2000 to get a child privately assessed only to be told that hse, dept of education or dept of social welfare will not accept the assessment. Its crazy!
@Helen McKernan: had a conversation about same with my cousin, a psychologist who gave unending hours of unpaid work to this corrupt hse before being driven to emigrate to the Uk for now. She would remind me and readers here too how many children will age out of the extraordinary wait lists and that is simply completely unacceptable..
@Helen McKernan: not to mention a child’s diagnosis being ‘removed’ ?! Worked in a place where the parents went through all the hoops and then it was decided that the diagnosis was null and void when they enrolled the child in school. Parents lost all their support and services overnight and had to start at zero…. And after 4 more years ended up with the original diagnosis…. An awful rollercoaster I wouldn’t wish on anyone
Good news, however this problem of ASD diagnostic assessments can easily be reduced if we stop relying on a very lengthy costly MDT assessment (clinical psychologist with either OT/SLT) to get the diagnosis in order to gain access to specialist preschools and schools. Why don’t we ask paediatricians to step up to make the diagnosis of ASD as in some countries? Why do we have to wait for a lengthy ADOS, ADI-R and a home/school visit at a whopping €1800-2200?? Why don’t we trust our developmental paediatricians (like in other countries) to make the ASD diagnosis based on DSM5 criteria to at least get access to services or DCA? It’s turned into a money making business at the expense of early identification and early intervention.
@Marinet VanVuren: all you suggests makes sense. That’s why it will not happen here. We do things differently. Not only in this area.
If they go ahead with this idea, already expensive private assessments are about to skyrocket in price.
FG and their policies of paying the private sector extortionate sums to provide services that the government should be providing need to go.
No parent should have to pay for a private needs assessment. No parent should be left waiting until it’s too late for their child to have a needs assessment carried. As someone who was born with a physical disability, it really infuriates me to see what parents of children who need services are being put through. This is one example of what we could use these purported surpluses over the next few years for. However, as history has shown us, it will be p****d up against a wall or given to line the pockets of political cronies. Yet again, squandering the opportunity to improve the lives of those who need it most.
If they had the money how long do families wait to gbe reimbursed.
Nothing more than luck has this man where he is today !
He has shown time and time again that he has no skills to run a country !
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