Mary Seery Kearney (Fine Gael) | Oireachtas source

I am in Leinster House. It is lovely to hear from and engage with the Minister of State as always. I am also grateful for the staff in the office of the Minister of State and how co-operative and supportive they are.

I echo the sentiments or questions of Deputy Costello with regard to the Dublin 12 group. There are several individual cases in the office at the moment that pertain to their complaints and those of members of their group who would have received the letters from the children's disability network team advising them that there will be a 14-month delay and other delays in the provision of services. It is not only about assessment of needs. There is a delay in the delivery of services. The fact that they included within the letters email and contact details for complaints shows us the extent to which they expect there will be complaints. That can be deeply frustrating. We are all tagged on a regular basis or a daily basis because there is such a level of frustration. We really understand that.

I also work with another group that is headed up by a woman called Vanessa Hughes. They have children who are perhaps seven years of age and have only had four weeks of occupational therapy. They are engaged in a long process. There are changes in staff. Each time there is a change in staff within the HSE or the provision of services, they have to start again. There is lack of continuity of personal knowledge. There is not even a hand-over of files. It is a question of starting again. There is a checklist as part of a long questionnaire. We need some intervention in respect of that.

I am delighted with the initiative of the Minister of State regarding autism. I know that the Minister of State at the Department of Education, Deputy Madigan, is completely 100% on board. When the Minister of State refers to silos I would be confident that there are no silos with her. Like the Minister of State present, she is active and passionate in this area and in bringing about resolution.

With speech and language therapists there is a difficulty in private practitioners coming on board with the HSE to fill maternity places. They are prohibited from having private practice while they are on board for the duration. We really need to do something about that. If we could engage and harness the hours of private practitioners, then we would shorten the lists and multiply the provision. That is important.

I have a practical question around Beechpark. Many of the services and people we engage with attend Beechpark in Tallaght. Is the centre closing or moving to the primary care centre? That is important.

One of the recommendations in the report is the creation of the database of assessment of needs. Clearly, that is well under way. There was a meeting recently regarding the biggest offenders of data protection breaches. The same five groups are at the top of the list of the Data Protection Commission. One of these is Tusla. There are repeat offenders in breaches of data protection. We got reassurance from Tusla at this committee before Christmas that things were being dealt with in the cases of the most recent breaches. We need to have a culture of privacy protection, especially if we have changes in staff. I will hand over to the Minister of State.