Ms Nicola Hart:

Progressing disability services seems to have been set up with a consultative, advisory style, not for the kind of consistent, ongoing therapy Senator O'Loughlin described having to get privately all those years ago. That is what is needed. My background is in speech and language therapy. We know working with parents works if you are seeing them regularly, so you know the family and the child and is able to coach continually. Coaching parents to help their child is not a once-off event. You needs to reach the family at least weekly to support them properly.

I would like to pick up on Senator O'Loughlin's comments about adult services in Kildare. People with Down's syndrome are the group with the highest identified incidence of early onset dementia. It arrives 20 to 25 years earlier than in the general population. Things that prevent dementia in typical people are ongoing, continuous education, social interaction and physical exercise. We are not giving people the kind of start in life to develop communication which promotes that kind of social interaction and pushes them towards a path of independence rather than a path of dependence. When we are setting up charities, such as the horticulture and literacy maintenance programmes in Kildare, we face barriers at all sides when trying to get funding to continue. That is not for young adults or school leavers. Some of them are now in their late 20s or 30s. That is the next issue coming down the road for parents. We are not just failing people at early stages, we are setting them on a different pathway. When we try to do something about that for those young adults, who are hitting middle age now, that is pulled away too.