Mr. Adam Harris:

There is a lot of work to be done here. As with any complex issue, it will require more than one intervention to address it. We need to be very clear that we are in a major crisis now arising from the recent judgment around the assessments of need. Last year the HSE struggled to do 6,000 assessments of need. Next year, as a result of the legislation, they may have to do 29,000 assessments of need. The entire range of support that is available will go purely on that diagnostic piece and will not be available for therapy. This is hugely worrying.

One aspect that needs to be looked at urgently is attracting therapists from overseas to come to Ireland. Obviously, this relates to pay and conditions but currently occupational therapy and speech and language therapy are not on the list of urgently needed professions. People cannot bring their families here. This is a very quick thing we could change that would have an impact. We will have to look at a range of measures such as giving people a budget to spend within the private sector, enabling people to travel abroad, and access to telehealth. The challenge is that if we provide those solutions they need to be very time-bound. There is a risk the system will worsen because the whole system will shift towards a private model.

I wish to pick up on a point that Senator Wall also brought up, but which I did not get to. We really need to look at the cost of disability. Dr. Áine Roddy of NUI Galway has published a paper around the cost of autism. It found that, on average, families are spending €28,000 more per year than they would if they were raising a child who is not on the autism spectrum. This mainly comes about because one parent must give up work or go part-time and any bit of disposable income ends up going on private therapies. The State has to do something to recognise this. Everybody knows that it is going to take time to address the waiting lists but people need to be resourced and provided for in the interim, particularly when we are faced with a cost-of-living crisis. Our pre-budget submission will focus on this.