Lynn Ruane (Independent) | Oireachtas source

I thank the witnesses for their contributions. When I am sitting and thinking about access to services, I think back to trying to access them myself for children with additional needs. That was the case with my children when I had no capital or way to navigate the system. I have since experienced trying to navigate the system with capital. It is interesting to have been in both of those spaces and to have seen just how different those experiences have been. This is why I wish to focus my contribution on the cohort of people who are not even making it onto the waiting lists for services, because there are many of them. Mr. Reid spoke about the provision of services being inequitable and this being dependent on a children's disability, age, school and where they live.

I would like to hone in a little bit more on the school and where they live. These can often come with many different assumptions and biases. I suppose it is a cultural issue within the professional class. I support many women - there are some men, but it is mostly women - who have experienced addiction in their lifetimes or who have experienced social service input into their families at some point in time. Many of them are being completely ignored when they try to access services, especially for invisible disabilities. For an obvious disability, it might be a little easier.

Many of the women who I support, of which there are currently a few, have spent ten or 12 years trying to get someone to just believe that their child may be autistic or may need psychology services. It is constantly being suggested to them that this is a parenting issue. There is a bias that arises from where they are from, where they live or the experiences they have had in life.

How we can begin to create an equitable service if there is a cohort of people within it who do not even understand the experience that people have when they are just trying to enter that space and navigate that world for themselves? Sometimes the judgment is so much that they lock themselves away. They fear trying to access services in case they put themselves on the radar of judgment or stigma. How do we create a fairer system? Mr. O’Regan spoke about raising all boats. However, if there are some boats that we do not even know need our support, how do we reach them? Maybe this is a question for the Minister of State as well. How do we create those advocacy supports at that base level, even in addiction services, and not only in primary care? How do we go about looking at what already exists in family resource centres and in addiction services? How do we place disability advocate supports there, so that people can get supports wherever they access services? That is one question.

My other question is on metrics and it more for my understanding. What type of data is the HSE collecting, and for what purpose? Is this only to look at the waiting lists? What type of data is collected? I understand how important data collection is for efficiency and for understanding what we are dealing with. I am also cautious about how we continue to build and use data in a way that will replace the human emotional intelligence in terms of how we assess people. Is the Department looking at the use of AI in relation to any disability services? If it is, is that underpinned by AI ethics?