Mr. Adam Harris:

I thank the Deputy for his kind words. We are really pleased by the autism innovation strategy. For a long time, we faced significant Civil Service opposition to establishing a strategy. It has come about through the leadership of the Minister of State, Deputy Rabbitte, and her engagement with us.

I would like the committee to look at the pathways through the process. Every day families face constant roadblocks. People can fall between chairs that they did not even know were there. In the discussion in recent years, concern has been expressed over whether autism is treated better than other disabilities. The diagnosis opens many doors.

In our experience, an autism diagnosis locks an awful lot of doors straightaway - for example, getting a school place, and particularly accessing mental health services. There are a lot of problems. Part of what we need to do is resource services. Earlier the committee debate concerned recruitment, which is a big issue. Culture is also a factor. Even when resources are not always available, then it is to do with how one communicates with families, and signposts people to enable them get to the next stop on their journey. In our experience what very often happens is people are handed a diagnosis report and off they go but they have no idea where to go. When I delivered training to this committee I said that if one typed the word "autism" into a Google search as many as 3 billion results will come up straightaway so families are just overwhelmed and end up spending a lot of money. Sometimes the options they go to are not accredited or are unsafe. Clearer pathways from the get-go would be really good, and one of the areas that we would like to see established is a key worker for families. I mean someone whose job is to provide support through the entire journey as opposed to persons constantly being passed between different professions.

Training is an obvious need and in many respects it is an achievable thing to be put in place. Let us consider all of the battles it took to set up autism classes in the education system. In reality, an autism class is a teacher and two special needs assistants, SNAs. One can end up with a teacher who is fresh out of college and has no experience or training in the area, which is a situation that does not work for anybody. Therefore, I would like the issue of mandatory training addressed.

Another key area is diagnosis for adults, and I am talking in very broad themes. There is a reality that for an autistic person to get a private diagnosis as an adult, it can cost between €800 and €1,500 plus there is very little follow-on support. There have been very good initiatives, such as the Aspect programme in Cork, which show that providing a small bit of support to people at the right time can enable a person to live a fully independent life as opposed to a person becoming isolated and reliant on the mental health or social welfare systems. I have outlined some of our key asks.