Cara Darmody set to meet Taoiseach for update on better autism services
Cara Autism Placard And Disability Darmody Buildings Is She Government 13 Old Because Holds At For Year Campaigning A
A schoolgirl who has held a series of Greta Thunberg-style protests outside the Dáil and the Taoiseach’s Office earlier this year as she campaigns for better autism services is to meet Simon Harris later today.
Shortly after taking office, Mr Harris had promised Cara Darmody that he would talk to the HSE about her demand that the agency set a date by which it would abide by a law that it currently fails to comply.
Under the Disability Act 2005, the HSE is legally obliged to have a child’s special needs assessed within six months but it has repeatedly failed to do this over the past 19 years.
Cara, from Tipperary, raised this among other issues when she met Mr Harris on the first day of protest vigils she held outside the Dáil and the Taoiseach’s Office in June.
The 13-year-old, who is campaigning for better autism services, has two severely autistic brothers, Neil and John.
She told the Irish Examiner: “I do not know exactly what the Taoiseach is going to tell me later on today. But I am very hopeful that it will be good news.
“I was very impressed with him when I met him in June and he told me there wasn't anything that I had asked for that wasn’t unreasonable.”
On the first day of her summer protest vigils, the Taoiseach’s staff invited her in to meet Mr Harris.
At that meeting, she asked him to get the HSE to make a commitment in public about the HSE’s promise to have a child’s special needs assessed within six months.
She also asked for him to allocate specific resources for special needs assessments and services, including speech and language therapy, occupational therapy and physiotherapy.
Cara added: “Parents should not have to fork out to pay for this. This should be covered by the State, and what has been and continues to go on is just plain wrong.
“I told this all to Mr Harris and I am hoping today he will have had time to reflect on what we spoke about and to come up with a plan, within an acceptable timeframe for the thousands of parents who simply cannot cope anymore.”
The Dáil heard earlier this year, for example, that 15,000 children were waiting for assessments.
Mark Darmody, her father, said Mr Harris also told Cara that an announcement at the time that the Government was to invest around €7m in autism services was inspired by her.
He said he also encouraged her to continue her protests.
The schoolgirl, whose mother Noelle is at their Ardfinnan home in Co Tipperary minding her brothers, has had face-to-face meetings with Leo Varadkar and Micheál Martin over her campaign.
As well as previous visits to the Taoiseach's office as an invited guest, she has also spent time in the Oireachtas itself, speaking to TDs and senators about her campaign.
This even led to a Labour Party parliamentary motion on better autism resourcing in 2023.
Despite this, however, she says still not enough is being done.
Cara became the youngest person in Ireland to pass Leaving Cert maths in August 2023.
She was just 12 when she took both ordinary level papers at her national school in Ardfinnan in June that year.
Some six years ahead of her time, Cara — who is given extra maths lessons every week at home by Mark — got 97%.
It is the same mark she got when she sat Junior Cert maths in 2022.
She decided to sit both exams to raise funds for autism services and awareness about the lack of timely resources for children with autism.