Jennifer Murnane O'Connor (Carlow-Kilkenny, Fianna Fail) | Oireachtas source

I thank all of the witnesses, in particular Dr. Walsh and Ms Walsh for their story on Zoe. There are many more families who are affected like Zoe’s. Many of the questions I want to ask have been asked. Dr. Walsh and Ms Walsh were in Australia and had the services there, and they then came to Galway and Cork. Do they see the failings within the HSE? We have nine community healthcare organisation, CHO, areas. Within the CHOs for the different areas, do they feel we could make changes? There seems to be a lack of communication, a lack of services and a lack of awareness. While Covid has affected everyone's life, the past two years have been particularly hard on families who have a family member with a disability. Where do they see the failings within the HSE? The CHO will play the biggest part. Do we need a full change there?

I have a question for Mr. Broadhead on the NDIS. Is there any other model like that around the world? If he had to pick an action plan on the basis that there are a certain number of actions that Ireland needs to take, where does he feel the actions should be?

It is not right that we are here listening to this story and I know there are many others. We need to make sure that we make change now but how do we begin that change? Where do we start? We need to start. Ms O’Toole said that we need to change our mindset but we also have to be practical. Funding is one of the biggest issues facing all of the health sector, as we can see ourselves. Ms Loughlin spoke about the national advocacy service and while she did get extra funding and we welcome that, some 65% of that funding went to residential care. We need to expand our other services. I want to know what we need to do to start the plan. How do we start it? How do we, as Oireachtas Members, commit today to working towards and supporting the actions?

We need to talk to the Minister, and I will speak to the Minister of State, Deputy Anne Rabbitte, on this because it is important. She tried to attend this morning but she had other meetings, although I told her this meeting was important. As in other areas, she is trying to give funding across all of the sectors of disability. What do we need to do to start going forward? What groups need to meet? What areas do Dr. Walsh and Ms Walsh feel we need to prioritise? In fairness to them, they are so professional about what road we need to take. As a doctor, where does Dr. Walsh think the start needs to come?