Pauline Tully (Cavan-Monaghan, Sinn Fein) | Oireachtas source

I thank everyone for coming. I especially welcome Cara. She spoke excellently and is making history today as the youngest person ever to present in front of a committee. Unfortunately, we have had other parent groups in here and they have spoken to us as well about this subject. We have also met parents in our constituencies and in different forums, and they are telling us the same things as the witnesses have just outlined, for example with regard to the waiting times for interventions and the regression being witnessed in children, in many cases, instead of progression. I have had parents crying because one child might have been lucky enough to get services and to have progressed well into secondary school, while nothing may have been provided for a younger child. Those parents are worried because they can see that child is not learning and not coping with life in many different scenarios. I hear from families constantly where their child has been expelled from school, and it is usually from a special school setting, which is disgraceful.

This comes down to the lack of resources across the board. We have had representatives of the HSE before this committee. We have asked them questions. I am also a member of the Joint Committee on Disability Matters. The questions have been asked there as well. There are simple things the HSE could be doing but it is not doing them. This issue is not, as was said, being treated as a crisis and with the urgency required. This is a crisis. Children are going to be affected in life. They will not be the best version of themselves that they should be. This is what we need to see.

Summer provision was also mentioned. This is a subject this committee has talked about several times. We have drafted a motion mandating that every special school setting should be providing summer provision. It is the children who most need the provision who are now losing out because this service was broadened out and schools seem to be picking and choosing who they can take into the programme. This is not fair, and we want to see this issue addressed, and addressed immediately. The planning for this must start now and not in May or June when the amount of money to be allocated is announced.

Even if we were to be very cold and look at this context based on cost saving, if children and young people were provided with the services they need at an early age, they would not need as many services and supports as they age. Aged parents were also referred to. I have met many of them and they spend their lives worrying what is going to happen to their children after their days have passed. This is because the provision of residential places is not there, which would make choices possible. When I refer to residential places, I am talking about places in the community and not about the institutionalised settings we used for years. I am talking about having proper, community-based living where supports are in place.

The witnesses are the people at the coalface and they are the people who need to tell us exactly what we can be doing. As a committee, we are going to draw up a report. We have made note of all these issues. We have heard about all of them. We will push for them to be addressed. We have pushed the HSE on the things it should and could be doing. There just does not seem to be the will. I do not know if this is a matter of funding, and if there is not the will to put the funding in place where it is needed and to put in place the properly trained staff where they are needed. There is not enough encouragement for people to go and work in disability services. It is a great sector to work in, but it is getting a bad name now because there are not enough staff in the children's disability network teams, CDNTs. The staff who are there are under severe pressure. They are not able to do their jobs because there are not enough of them to do what they are supposed to do and to see the children. Children are being told they will be seen in three or four years, and this is just not on.

I have, therefore, heard everything that was said before, and I assure the witnesses we are taking it on board.

We will push as much as we can, but what more do the witnesses believe the committee can do? I would welcome their view.