Micheál Martin (Cork South Central, Fianna Fail) | Oireachtas source

I apologise. The first point is I appreciate the work she is doing and the fact it is timebound. I wish her every success. We will do everything we can to be supportive of the work of the Oireachtas Joint Committee on Gender Equality. On the constitutional issues, again, several Ministers have briefed the committee on the matters under their aegis. On the referendums that may arise from the ctizens' assembly, and officials across Departments are working to develop proposals, she is correct to say wording will be key, as I know from my Oireachtas experience. We have to be clear and we have to try to make sure there is not mission creep, or it does not become a broader agenda in respect of all sorts of issues people would like to include, or the difficulty will be we may never get agreement. In other words, the perfect can be the enemy of the good in respect of these issues. I will be making fully sure we understand the implications and so on.

We are supportive of and would like to move on the recommendations on the referendum contained in the citizens' assembly but wording will be key. The timing is getting on for late autumn, if we are honest, because I am a believer in having a proper lead-in period for explanations. Sometimes, the time we give to the Referendum Commission can be tight relative to the campaign and the vote. Personally, I have not been a great advocate of holding all the referendums together because it runs against the idea of giving the fullest information and the widest debate among the public. Wording will be key and developing a consensus on that wording across the Oireachtas will be very important. I look forward to working with the Deputy in that regard. We are open and positively disposed to having referendums in respect of those issues identified by the citizens' assembly and that will be fine-tuned, if I heard the Deputy correctly, by the committee, which will move into an implementation phase. We welcome the idea of an action plan for implementation and the Government will work in parallel with that.

On future citizens' assemblies, we have said there will be two more on issues many Members are anxious to have assemblies on; a public one on drugs and drug abuse and the policies and strategies to combat that and another on the future of education, in addition to a citizens' assembly on neutrality, as I have discussed, if that is agreed. That broader issue is a potential one as well. There is a balance. It is interesting that the Joint Committee on the Eighth Amendment, chaired by former Senator Catherine Noone, worked, but there was quite a significant difference between the recommendations of the citizens' assembly and what the committee eventually came up with, although it was at least a base on which the committee worked to get agreement. It was not easy to get a pragmatic resolution from that committee. It is quite interesting if we look at who voted and in what direction and so on, but we will not say any more about that. It was done and it was a good outcome, ultimately.

Deliberative forms are good models. We always have to respect the rights of directly elected representatives of the Oireachtas in respect of decisions and our parliamentary democracy, but deliberative democracy is an important strand to our wider democratic framework. We heard earlier from Deputy Funchion that children were able to Zoom into the committee she chairs, for example, and give evidence, which is a further extension of that idea of participation and engagement with the Oireachtas. So far, these deliberative forms have been a healthy influence on democracy. We have an opportunity for the committee to follow through on this and demonstrate it even further. We can also follow through on the two assemblies currently running on biodiversity and the mayor for Dublin, in line with the Deputy's point, and put their recommendations into action fairly quickly.

The Joint Committee on Autism chaired by Senator Carrigy is, again, time-limited. There needs to be a focus on autism at post-primary level. As Minister for Education, in 1998 I was involved in recognising autism for the first time as a special category in education. It had not been recognised for pupil-teacher allocation ratios up to that point. I am concerned post-primary has not moved at the same pace as primary at all. There should be an obligation on all post-primary schools to be open to taking children with autism. It is more resource intensive and perhaps they cannot take in as many children. That is why the opportunity should be shared. In some districts at present, it is left to one or two schools to take in young people with autism. It needs a centre. It is not just about a unit within a class; it needs a full centre within the school. There are some very good examples of where it is fantastic and very well done, but every second level school should be obliged to take in children with special needs right across the board, especially those with autism. We can learn more and it is working very well in some schools.

Assessments are also a very big issue. I said there needs to be greater harmonisation between health and education. The assessment issue is now a very significant one in the context of recent judicial decisions. The 2005 Act has never been implemented in a comprehensive way. We also have to look at the models very carefully because some of them are not sustainable at present. What I mean by that is we need to be far more flexible in how we assess. There is an issue at the moment with capacity in the public sector to do what is expected regarding the demand. There needs to be a review of assessment in light of recent court decisions and how we combine assessment, intervention and identifying the correct programmes for each child in terms of where he or she is on the autistic spectrum. We need a very varied programme to facilitate and accommodate that. Each child is different in many respects and each child will need an individual education plan and programme. Primary schools and specialist schools are very up for this. The progressing disabilities services programme is working to create centres but, on the other hand, there seems to have been a dilution of therapists in special schools, which should not have happened. The multidisciplinary approach within schools can work and at present we should make sure special schools, at a minimum, retain multidisciplinary teams. That would get rid of a lot of frustration for many parents, where they cannot get access to anything at the moment, which is not satisfactory.

There has been a lot of progress on employment but we can do an awful lot more to facilitate employment for young people with autism. There needs to be greater supports. Many supports are there but they are not fully utilised, such as financial incentives to employers and so on.

Senator Cassells raised the matter of the online media regulation Bill. The Government has brought in that legislation and is very anxious to deliver it. There is increased regulation across Europe on this and there is no doubt social media is a key platform. I will make the point individuals have to behave as well. What we are seeing on social media is shocking. I do not understand what is going on in the world of sport where after every game or every match some vile commentary is uploaded to attack a sportsperson.

It reflects very badly on the individuals who do that. The companies say they are developing algorithms and all sorts of mechanisms to try to deal with this and head it off at the pass. There must be strong regulation. It is a very worrying situation, especially for children and young people. It is damaging to the health of children and young people. We must protect our children and young people from the abuse and from the very negative influences on them. The online media regulation Bill will be a key factor in that.

I commented earlier that we need to get it right. We need to ensure we have a commission that works. It must work. There can be a tendency to do what will play well. I do not mean that in the context of what Deputy Bacik said. A number of bodies we have brought into the regulatory or appeals side have become snowed under by the volume and there is no satisfaction. The public are making complaints. Let us take the Garda Síochána Ombudsman Commission, GSOC. I am not blaming it or any other body but speaking just as a Deputy and forgetting about being Taoiseach for a moment, would I recommend someone go to GSOC with a complaint? It would depend on the gravity of the complaint and so on but I would have to forewarn the person that this could take years. We need to weigh that up in whatever architecture we create.