Holly Cairns (Cork South West, Social Democrats) | Oireachtas source

I thank our guests for attending and sharing their lived experiences. People with autism are a diverse cohort with different individual needs, which our guests elaborated on, and those needs change over the course of their lives. Our State services have not developed an understanding of this to provide the proper range of educational, health and social support services that are required for people to exercise their right. Mr. Doyle is quite right in saying it has not allocated adequate funding to do so. It is the job of all of us present to push for that. The Department's capacity review this year concluded we will need €350 million to meet the unmet needs of people with disabilities, but less than one sixth of that has been allocated. We need structures, resources and everything else to ensure people with disabilities can access education, employment and housing, which is a major issue. As Mr. Harris rightly pointed out, the need to ratify the optional protocol to the UN convention is key to that and it is disgraceful that has not yet happened. I assure our guests we will do our best to try to make that happen, as is the purpose of this committee, and we will keep pushing for it.

I cannot ask all the questions I have, due to time constraints, so I will ask just a few. If any of our guests have other points and there is not time to make them, they might give a written response or get in touch with my office and I will revert to them. The vital role of carers and families has been a clear theme in this meeting. Unfortunately, their efforts usually go unappreciated by the State. Carers are consistently overlooked, despite the very important and often exhausting work they do and will keep doing out of love and dedication. I could not agree more with Mr. Doyle's call for a statutory provision for a liaison office for families, guardians and carers within the disability Department. Will he elaborate on the importance of this?

Ms Mullan outlined the need to recruit more people to provide in-home respite for exhausted parents and how the provision of services travelling remotely and being provided in the home could address issues related to rural transport. How that would work?

A point that is often raised relates to the additional stress and hardship put on families in trying to negotiate State and publicly-funded services. In most cases, as the witnesses all outlined, people have to fight for basic services. I often hear of people having to turn to online groups for information and advice. While there agencies such as the National Advocacy Service for People with Disabilities, is it time for a new service from which families would be given a single point of contact who could help them navigate the services? Mr. McLoughlin raised specific issues with agencies. Will he elaborate on potential solutions for families? Ms Mullan might answer the same question, from the perspective of someone living in a rural area. Since becoming a public representative, I appreciate the issues people face in this regard. In my constituency, some people have to travel a three-hour round trip to receive 30 minutes of essential speech and language therapy for which they have been waiting for more than two years.