Ms Ger Kenny:

I thank the committee for the opportunity. I will continue from what Ms Jones said about the support in Dublin 15. My own story is that my son has now just turned 21. Nearly nine years ago, there was nothing for him there socially, nowhere for him to go and nothing for him to do, so another parent and I set up the club Little Seeds Arch Club. We are affiliated with the Arch Clubs umbrella, which is for children and adults with special needs in Ireland. I would love to see similar clubs in counties in Ireland and for them to have their own support groups.

Little Seeds opened its doors nine years ago to seven children and we now support 70 families. The children are from the age of seven to 22. We have a girl who is 22. It is fantastic for them to have their own safe environment and they love that hour. We do Lego with them, we play basketball and we get professionals in to do occupational therapy with them. We have outings in the summer when the club stops, because it is like the school year and it runs from September to June. We organise outings where we bring the siblings along and make them feel just as special. I would love to see this rolled out across all the counties in Ireland. Many of them have clubs, but I know there are not as many in the midlands. I would love to see Little Seeds replicated.

Many of our families are on waiting lists for therapies, both private and public. Little Seeds provides autism therapy services through fundraising. Ms Jones has done fundraising for the club. We are able to offer subsidised therapies which include music therapy, play therapy, sibling workshops, yoga, well-being and art. Through our own fundraising there is so much that we can subsidise for families who are struggling. The parents get on so well and they are not alone on this autism journey.

I will speak for myself. My son, Mark, is 21 now. I know what it was like 15 years ago when services were still as bad. It was a lottery as to whether we got a little therapy and whether Mark had a class to go to. I can remember ringing and being told they would put my son on a waiting list. In the years that have lapsed since Mark was diagnosed, we are probably still in the same situation with waiting lists for therapies and for everything. Really and truly, we should not be. Ireland is such a great country in a lot of ways. It is not a Third World country. Our children and our parents should be at the top of the list. We are the spokespeople here today for our children. We are their voice and we need to make a difference.

There is the idea of rolling out what they have in Malta was mentioned. We should be replicating that. That model seems to be going so well. Ireland should be far greater at catering for our children than what it is.