Ms Helen Holmes:

I have been sitting here thinking about how to respond to the questions. Our campaign has been going for four years now. As he will know, Deputy Ó Snodaigh has been a great support to us from day one. We appreciate all of his help. He comes out to the protests and always answers our queries. It makes us feel like someone is listening, which is a great thing. I never thought I was going to be the parent who goes out and protests, who makes the phone calls and who has to, for lack of a better word, fight with people to get scraps of services for my child. That appears to be the way the system is moulding parents. You are basically told that, unless you shout the loudest, your child will not get anything. That is okay if you are somebody who can be out there with a campaign or who is on Facebook, Instagram or Twitter and who has a backing, but what about the parent at home who cannot get out to these meetings to show support? They may want to but have no one to do it.

Many parents are in situations like mine. Since I was 20 years of age, after college, I have always been in the workforce. When Adam was given his diagnosis, a decision had to be made as to what was best for our family. That meant surviving on one income so that I could be at home to support Adam. We spoke about this situation a little bit. I refer back to what we said about the difference the assistance of an occupational therapist or a speech and language therapist would make. There are many parents like me who are home carers and who would love to get back to some form of education. I am a parent with a background working in finance but, because this whole world has been opened up to me through my son, I wish I could make an impact and difference. I do that through the campaign but I would like to do something longer term and to get some education in that area. That is food for thought.

Another thing that strikes me today, which members will have seen on their news feeds this morning, is the Department of Education's emergency response to the shortage of school places. This is causing absolute uproar and panic among parents and campaigns this morning.

The Minister of State, Deputy Rabbitte, came to our area. By all accounts, she is really eager to listen to stories. The stories that struck parents most on the night were those from elderly ladies who spoke about the struggle of caring for their adult children. A parent told us all about the fantastic work they do in the community but it is very upsetting, when starting out on your journey, to think you will still be fighting this battle with the system and having to stand up every day when you are in your 60s, 70s and 80s. That is not how the system should work.