More than 23,000 children are on waiting-lists for speech and language therapy in the Republic, according to the Children's Rights Alliance.
It says that almost 4,000 of them have been queuing for between one and two years.
The finding is contained in a report which describes the Government's overall performance in child-related services as 'barely acceptable'
But the Health Service Executive has responded that in recent years, a range of new approaches have been developed and used in many Speech and Language Therapy services across the country to ensure that available resources are used to best effect to provide assessment and ongoing therapy to children in line with their prioritised needs.
The HSE has said it cannot comment on individual cases.
The finding is contained in a report on 30 areas of children's policy conducted for the alliance by an independent panel of experts.
It describes as 'barely acceptable' the Government's performance in relation to undertakings it had made over its three years in power.
Among the criticisms is the failure to publish promised legislation to make it a legal requirement to report allegations of child abuse in publicly-funded bodies.
It also criticises the failure to publish a long-promised nutrition strategy, despite a five-fold increase in obesity among boys.
However, the report commends the Government for delivering on its promise to appoint 200 new social workers to help to counteract child abuse.
