Junior Cert student from Tipperary to address EU conference in Brussels
Tipperary teenager Cara Darmody has announced she will be heading to Brussels to address an EU conference at the end of June
Tipperary teenager and disability rights activist Cara Darmody (15) has officially come out of advocacy retirement to launch her most ambitious campaign to date.
The Tipperary teenager will take the Irish Assessment of Needs crisis to the global stage by addressing a European Union conference in Brussels on Tuesday June 30, before returning home to stage another gruelling 50-hour sleep-out protest outside Leinster House the following week, from 11am Tuesday July 7 to 1pm on Thursday July 9.
Darmody, who previously paused her high-profile campaign to study for and sit her Junior Cycle exams, states that the ongoing failure of the Irish Government to provide legally mandated, timely diagnostic assessments and therapies for children with disabilities has forced her back into the public arena.
"When I first started campaigning for Assessments of Needs (AONs) 3 years ago, the waiting list was 4,500 children. Then it went to 15,000 when I first did a 50-hour protest at Leinster House in May 2025. And now it’s dramatically escalated to over 22,000. It’s a national disgrace.”
Darmody also says. "I cannot sit idly by while the Government preaches to us that we must obey laws, but yet they systematically smash the AON law by not assessing 93% of children within the statutory 6-month timeframe. Over 22,000 children in Ireland are being left in the dark without vital assessments & services – it’s not acceptable.”
“The Government’s strategy to date has failed, there’s no other way to put it. The statistics bear that out, a five-fold increase from 4,500 waiting to over 22,000 in just 3 years. And I’ve put concrete solutions on the table – for example, I’ve suggested for years a huge international recruitment campaign for psychologists & therapists, because without them, they cannot provide proper assessments or services. But that suggestion has been resisted by the HSE.
“To be fair to them, they heard me before and acted on my request not to change the 6-month statutory timeframe to assess. They also created “Cara’s Fund” in my honour and put €30million of funding into it. But if they don’t hear me now and urgently bring in psychologists & therapists, almost certainly from abroad, then this national crisis will keep escalating and continue to cause permanent damage to autistic children. They need to listen and act now.”
During the EU Address Darmody will travel to Brussels to deliver a formal address outlining the systemic failures of the Irish state regarding the Disability Act 2005.
She will share the personal impact on her family—including her two profoundly autistic brothers, Neil and John—and advocate for EU-level scrutiny on Ireland's non-compliance.
She will then start a 50-Hour Leinster House Sleep-Out immediately following her return from Brussels.
Darmody will return to the pavement outside the gates of Dáil Éireann for a continuous 50-hour protest, demanding immediate accountability, emergency funding to what the Government calls “Cara’s Fund” (where Cara was previously personally credited with €30million of funding by the Taoiseach), and strict statutory compliance for child assessments.
Darmody concludes: "The Irish Government can no longer stand over the permanent damage that is being caused to autistic children by failing to provide them with proper assessments and services. There also seems to be an acceptance that the breaking of this particular law will continue for years to come – this cannot be allowed to continue and the Government must act with the highest urgency to stop the breaking of this law. The tolerance of this must end."