Cork Assessment of Needs funding called into question  

A funding boost that aims to help address the backlog for families of children waiting longest for an Assessment of Need (AON) is not what it seems, a Cork advocate has claimed.

The Minister of State for Disabilities Anne Rabbitte this week welcomed a Government decision to finance an AON waiting list initiative, commencing in the coming days, through the procurement of private assessments .

However, the Cork chairwoman of Families Unite for Services and Support, Rebecca O’Riordan, told : “This announcement is welcome, but it is not what it seems — this was already happening on a wide scale, funding was already allocated to this.”

It comes after The Echo’s recent report that 765 children were overdue for completion of AONs in Cork in the end of the first quarter of the year.

Some 388 children were overdue completion of their assessments on March 31 in the North Lee Local Health Office, higher than the combined total number of children, 377, who were overdue completion of their assessments in the three other Cork local health offices.

Great news

Fine Gael local election candidate for Cork North Central Imelda Daly told The Echo: “This funding boost is great news for Cork. With rising numbers of families requiring assessments of need around the country, its crucial we do everything possible to provide assessments.

“The €6.89m increase of funding will provide 2,500 private assessments nationwide over the next six months, and will start in the coming days. This is in addition to the existing HSE core funding of €5m, which already aims to complete 1,800 assessments in 2024.

“No family in Cork or elsewhere should have to wait excessively long periods of time for the needs of their child to be assessed.

“The quicker the assessment takes place, the sooner the family can access the right services.”

This new funding will prioritise the families who have been waiting longest, she said, and “crucially, parents will not be expected to pay any initial costs, as the HSE will reimburse these private clinics directly”.

“Since taking office, An Taoiseach Simon Harris has put a massive emphasis on breaking down silos across Government and creating the swift change this country needs.”

Not forgotten

Ms O’Riordan said that the children affected must not be forgotten.

“Fuss is a group of parents who have engaged at every level of governance since forming in 2022,” she said.

“We have engaged with almost every political party on this issue.

“As an organisation, we are not politically aligned because we feel this is a human rights issue that crosses party lines.

“However, it is important to note that Fine Gael remains the only political party that have never once engaged with us at either a local or national level.

“If we keep taking this issue as political soundbites and forgetting the children at the centre of this crisis, we risk losing our humanity. We risk stumbling further into an Ireland where disability rights are actually going backwards.

“An assessment of need is not a waitlist for services, it’s not even required to access services, and we are receiving a concerning number of reports of public assessments which fail to comply with the terms of the Disability Act.”