A mother whose young son has been waiting two years for speech and language therapy says he is “really struggling” as he begins school.

It comes as the Irish Association of Speech and Language Therapists warned that the redeployment of therapists to coronavirus testing and tracing has created a backlog that will take years to clear.

On Newstalk Breakfast this morning, Catríona Ward said her five-year-old son Dylan had his long-awaited appointment cancelled back in May.

She said he struggles to express himself and has found the move to Junior infants very hard.

“Dylan was assessed over two years ago with severe language disorder and borderline autism but he hasn’t really got autism, he has some traits,” she said.

“It is quite sad to see; he does have really bad meltdowns and that.”

'Really struggling'

She said he is “really struggling at the moment” in school.

“Now, I did think that going into Junior Infants would help but he is really struggling really badly with it.”

She said she has heard “absolutely nothing” abut when Dylan might finally be seen.

“Every time I ring, they are not answering their phones,” she said. “I can understand there is a crisis going on at the moment but I would like to know exactly what the dates are you know? It is very frustrating.”

Waiting lists

Also appearing on the show, Social Democrats co-leader Catherine Murphy said there is “no doubt” that it has taken too long to bring specialists back from COVID duties to their own jobs – but warned that, “what Catriona is describing there is something that predates COVID.”

“We all talk about the educational disadvantage of when the schools were closed but this is a huge educational disadvantage for children who have been identified early on in the assessments with the public health nurse,” she said.

“Then they go on a list, then there is a huge waiting time for the initial assessment and then they go on the list for speech therapy.

“It really isn’t good enough and I have seen, so often, situations where, for example, understandably, women who are speech therapists go on maternity leave and when they come back are frustrated to fine out their lists have grown.”

Recruitment

She said testing and tracing recruitment from outside the health service is now underway but warned that it took far too long to happen.

“It was way too slow and by not doing that quickly enough all you have done is exacerbated a problem that was already there,” she said.

“It is being addressed now and it has been over the last number of weeks but the problem is there is a huge catch-up here.”

She said a “huge recruitment drive” is now needed to address the issue

“We need a recruitment drive in relation to particular parts of the country where there are huge problems,” she said.

“It is not everywhere across the country this really is a postcode lottery.”

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