Mr. Michael McCarthy:

I thank the Deputy for raising these issues. With regard to the first issue he raised, when I was a Member, I had a similar issue and it happened to be with regard to a local authority. It was quite a complex housing case. It did not involve the standard housing application and verification; it was very different and reflective of how fast society changes. I felt as aggrieved and angry as the Deputy does now regarding the outcome. It involved a family whose eldest daughter was on the autism spectrum and no additional consideration because of the specific needs was given to the application. Once it was interrogated it was obvious that it was not a run-of-the-mill case. To be fair to the local authority, there was nothing in its remit that could have resulted in the case being treated differently. The local authority was courteous and polite but there was no outcome. As a result, in 2012 I introduced the first autism-specific legislation in the House, which the Deputy will recall. It won cross-party political support and I believe it is now being dealt with in the Seanad where Senator Reilly, the former Minister for Health, is pursuing it in all but name. The Bill would require organs of the State to adopt an autism strategy and, therefore, certain statutory legislative obligations would mean that if the same family went through the system following the enactment of the legislation, there would be a requirement for the local authority to act differently regarding the housing needs of the family because of the autism.