Ruairí Ó Murchú (Louth, Sinn Fein) | Oireachtas source

I agree. On some level we need something universal across all Departments so we can facilitate children and citizens as they operate in society like the rest of us and not as a failing. Some of the difficulties with the school inclusion model have been thrown up by everybody. Training for teachers is absolutely necessary but there needs to a particular emphasis on resource teachers and even beyond that, SNAs. I know from my own experience that probably made up for an awful lot of services that did not necessary happen for our Turlough and I put that on record.

It was said earlier that everyone should work together, such as the CDNTs, the CAMHS and so on. I have an issue with a young girl being referred by the CDNT into the CAMHS for anxiety and probably issues stemming from Covid, which exacerbated things. The response was the service does not deal with kids that are autistic. That is a situation we need to deal with. I get that these services are under pressure and to a degree they are probably playing a game of ping-pong but it is not good enough. It needs to be dealt with.

Then there are the adult services.