Mr. Adam Harris:

Schooling is an area about which we have significant concerns. A number of families have arrived here with children who were in specialised settings and who have been unable, as of now, to secure a place in an autism class or a special school. It is very likely that the needs of these children will have increased during the course of the conflict. As a result, it would seem inappropriate that the first port of call should be mainstream schooling but it appears to be the reality. There have been instances where special schools and classes have been able to make provision but we need a clearer national plan for addressing this challenge.

It is very welcome that the summer provision programme will be available for Ukrainian young people this summer and that will reach children with additional needs from Ukraine who are in Ireland.

We need to see a clear plan. The first step in doing that is to see a capacity review from the National Council for Special Education, NCSE, around the number of children who are likely to arrive and where they are likely to arrive to.

We must see a formal setting aside of the policies around access to special classes in schools. The education system in Ukraine is quite different from that in Ireland. For example, children start school later and there are special classes but they are not structured or called the same thing ours are called, so it does not seem reasonable to expect that reports will recommend an autism class place in an Irish school when a young person was never expected to come here. Policy changes are required. That is very important.

It is also worth mentioning the under-diagnosis piece. It appears there is quite a difference in how support is provided to autistic people in the community in Ukraine. The majority of autistic people over the age of 13 appear to be living in institutions. As a result, we expect that quite a significant percentage of adults arriving in Ireland may not have a diagnosis. We know that in our own country there are autistic women who are only now able to get a diagnosis. We still do not have a public pathway to diagnosis for autistic adults in Ireland. It is critically important for the mental health teams that may work with autistic children or adults in the time ahead to have the ability to give an autism diagnosis where appropriate and, critically, that they have the training in being able to identify autism where a person may be autistic because that is often far from the reality in day-to-day life.