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

Go raibh maith agaibh. I am afraid to speak at this stage. That was very clearly put and in fairness to Deputy Buckley beforehand, he said what needed to be said about Dr. Crawford and Ms McSherry and the fabulous work that is being done.

Dr. Crawford spoke about the necessary legislative answer. We are aware of the whole issue in relation to schools, which is the preparatory work combined with the big stick, if necessary, to ensure we have the system our kids require. We could have all of the legislative pieces and that would not matter unless we do the work to ensure we have the capacity and the resources. This is accepting completely that we have a broken up system with silo answers, and that we do not deal with citizens from the cradle to the grave and all of the various pieces within that.

I wish to speak about the movement aspect I get the notion; if our Turlough was not given movement breaks and regulations then we would have all sorts of incidents. I heard talk before about movement and the release of a particular protein. One often hears about magic bullets with regard to movement with horses but the idea that it is just movement is hard to believe. The way it was sold to me was that the release of this protein can almost bypass, for a period of time, the difficulties that autistic people have and can facilitate learning. Perhaps the witnesses could give us some insight on that. It is probably an unfair question but that is the nature of the questions I can ask.

Ms McSherry spoke about the autism strategy of 2001. Can we put down, straightforwardly, exactly what we are talking about here and what are the necessary pieces that are not in play at the minute? Perhaps it would be difficult to answer in just three minutes but will Ms McSherry also explain how these courses work? I find the whole idea very interesting. It is that part, even if they get beyond secondary school, that is absolutely necessary for a whole swathe of people.