Pádraig O'Sullivan (Cork North Central, Fianna Fail) | Oireachtas source

I thank Ms McDonagh. Turning to Dr. Roddy, we spoke earlier about how nobody wants to make this transactional or a concept about finances or value for money, but she is a health economist and in that regard, and I hate to ask the question this way, is the State getting value for money? I am referring to the return, whether services are public-provided or private-provided, throughout the country. Most committee members would say that we are inundated with people telling us about the services. According to Dr. Roddy's report, 73.8% of respondents indicated that there was at least one occasion in the previous 12 months where a child with autism needed medical care. This is an additional cost. Equally, 74% of children did not receive one or more services in the previous 12 months. I hate to reduce this issue to this kind of transactional debate, but is there a greater role for personalised budgets? Should we give control back to the parents and the clients to do what they want with the funding allocated to their children? I am aware that in time this will overburden the private system. What are Dr. Roddy's thoughts on this?