Hundreds attend Tipperary girl's 'Monster Meeting' protest outside Leinster House
Cara Darmody is campaigning for the Government to do more to help children with disabilities
Disability rights campaigner Cara Darmody held a rally outside Leinster House last Thursday afternoon, with hundreds of people and politicians attending to support her cause. She called for a State Apology for how successive Governments have treated children with disabilities and also labelled what they are doing as an "International Embarrassment."
CAMPAIGN
Cara, who has two brothers with autism, is campaigning to improve services nationally for children with autism. She is advocating for the government to do better in providing faster access to Assessments of Needs, better Services including speech & language therapy and better access to appropriate school places for children with autism.
Multiple meetings were also held with various Opposition parties on the day and Cara secured commitments from five parties to meet her main ask. The parties who have committed are Labour, Sinn Féin, Independent Ireland, People Before Profit and Social Democrats. If elected in the upcoming General Election, these parties will undertake to stop the HSE from breaking the Assessments of Needs law within 12 months of being elected.
This current Assessments of Needs law says that when a child with autism presents to the HSE, they must be assessed within six months. It presently takes several years, with one area in Dublin 15 now having a waiting list of over seven years.
HSE
Cara also had a two hour long meeting with the HSE's Head of Disability Bernard O'Regan to discuss proposals for how to immediately deal with the present crisis.
"It was an amazing day overall and I'm so grateful to the large crowds that came out to support this really important cause. Overall it couldn't have gone any better".
BUDGET
When asked what she expected from this Budget, Cara said "This is a simple one - the Taoiseach said that he will put more money into what he calls 'Cara's Fund', the fund that he previously put €7million into to deal with backlogs. So lets see what he puts into that. If nothing goes in, that'll be a broken promise, so let's see what he does".