Emer Higgins (Dublin Mid West, Fine Gael) | Oireachtas source

I thank each of the five witnesses. They all brought valuable and unique insights, not just on behalf of themselves, their families and their services but on behalf of the communities they are representing as well. There are a lot of common themes within the statements we have heard today. Unfortunately everybody feels they have had to fight and advocate every step of the way, whether it is for themselves or their family members, and that is simply not good enough.

The model of care is coming up again and again. Mr. Harris put it well when he said that we are focused on health and not necessarily as focused on social and human rights. We need to move to being more person-centric because that is what disability services are about. They are about providing the right level of service, intervention and support to people who need it. I was pleased to hear the welcoming of the autism innovation strategy and the progress that is being made to develop it.

Mr. McLoughlin outlined the barriers that he and his family have faced, as well as the absence of planning for the future and the real fear that many carers have of what will happen after they are gone. That is something that we, as a Government and a society, need to put more planning into. The Autistic Paddies representatives spoke about having better planning of services from the get-go and having better engagement for the people who will be availing of these services at the end of the planning when it comes to actualisation.

Ms Mullan shared many real life experiences of people whose potential, whether that be living independently, hobbies, education or employment, simply are not being fulfilled and that is because we are not enabling that to happen. We need to examine how we can do that. Ms Mullan spoke about how the programme ended after 36 months, which concerns me. I would love to learn a bit more about that and about how Ms Mullan feels that could be looked at.

Mr. Doyle mentioned the big policy initiative of transferring the HSE disability unit into the Department of Children, Equality, Disability, Integration and Youth and giving overall responsibility to the Minister for Children, Equality, Disability, Integration and Youth. He also said that the family guardianship and carer's office could be part of that level of engagement, which answered a lot of the questions that Mr. McLoughlin set out at the start in terms of the fears of carers who are getting older, as well as what Mr. Harris has succinctly put together on the advocacy of all the networks' perspectives. I would be interested to hear if the other witnesses think that would work and what benefit that would bring to their families, peers or service. Would it be a good idea to transfer the HSE disability unit into the aegis of the Department of Children, Equality, Disability, Integration and Youth?