Anne Rabbitte (Galway East, Fianna Fail) | Oireachtas source

I forgot to mention a point to the Senator. It is important to say it at this point. One of the most progressive things I have seen as part of the PDS roll-out is that we have abolished the ageing-out aspect. That piece, in which a child fell off a cliff-edge at six years of age and had to start again, is now gone. That was one of the gaps that we identified and it has been removed. That is an important, integral piece of our PDS. The other piece in the rolling out of the PDS, as Ms Crehan Roche has said previously, is that our network teams will overlap with the primary medical centres. We are going to have 91 network teams. We have 96 primary care teams. That will ensure that geography is not a barrier and there is service throughout the country.

Finally, sometimes when I watch Twitter or when I listen to colleagues, people tell me about all the gaps in the services. Within the Department of Children, Equality, Disability, Integration and Youth, along with Ms Baxter and Mr. Brunell, I sought and secured funding. That funding will ensure that I do a mapping of services. It will not map services relative to the HSE. It will take into context where we have disability providers, respite, day services, adult education that is being supportive and employability programmes across the country. It will be an integrated system where people will be able to get a one-stop shop. It will cover what is nearest to them, what suits them, and who they can contact. We should not just look at this as a health model; we should look at a whole-of-person model that takes employment, housing, education and health into account. That funding was secured in budget 2022. They are working on the pilot. At the moment the Department is creating its tender to go out. It will be ready in 2022

We are hoping that the mapping will dovetail with national ASD programme board, so that we will eventually end up with a one-stop shop for disability. We first need to map to find the gaps and signpost. That is the plan. That great work is going on between both Departments.