Targeted reforms to improve the Assessment of Need (AON) process for children and their families have been announced.
Legislation will be required to introduce the reforms which Minister for Children, Disability and Equality Norma Foley acknowledged would take time.
Minister Foley said the reforms will lead to a faster and more efficient way of carrying out AON reports, instead of "tying up therapists' time unnecessarily".
Assessment officers will be supported by eleven new teams comprising 44 experts who will provide clinical guidance and support during the AON process.
Each team will include a psychologist, a speech and language therapist, an occupational therapist, and an administrator.
She said the aim is to provide a faster more efficient process. Identifying the need at an early point in a child's life is required, Minister Foley added.
The changes will not remove any rights for parents to apply for an AON for their children, and they will not alter the statutory six-month timeline set out in the Disability Act.
It will also remain the case that an AON is not required to access health services.
The Department has said the legislation will make the process faster, ensuring children to not receive unnecessary assessments or tests and that it will help children to receive "a timelier report that identifies their needs and the services required to meet those needs".
Asked how much faster the process will be, Minister Foley pointed out that pre-legislative scrutiny was required but the current length it was taking - including 30 hours in some cases - was too long.
However, she acknowledged that each child needed to be treated individually as no child's needs are the same.
Minister Foley also noted that the Department of Education will shortly agree a new process to remove requirements for professional reports such as AON reports, from entry requirements for special schools and special classes.
This process is unlikely to be introduced until September 2027.
An Autism Assessment and Intervention Protocol which will be launched in February, to provide parents with a faster route than the AON route of getting an autism diagnosis for their children.
The announcement comes as Sinn Féin brings a private members motion on AON to the floor of the Dáil this evening.
It notes that children are legally entitled to an assessment of their health and education needs under the Disability Act 2005, and that the assessment must take place within six months.
However, it states: "The law is still being broken with respect to the 18,097 children whose Assessment of Need is now overdue, and with just 4,534 assessments conducted in the first three quarters of this year the number of children being failed is rising every quarter."
The private members motion is being supported by other Opposition parties and calls on the Government to set a specific target date by which it will comply with the legal entitlement to 6-month AON and demands "an emergency action plan to clear the backlog."
Disability Rights Campaigner Cara Darmody began a 50-hour non-stop protest at 11am over what she described as the AON "national crisis".
She is due to meet the combined Opposition party leaders at 3.45pm this afternoon outside the front gates of Leinster House.
