Ms Cara Steinmetz:

There is a perception that because the branches are larger or depending on the size of the branch, the services provided are impacted, but it is the parents who are doing the fundraising. I have seen grandmothers on bikes doing the Tour de Munster, which is a 600 km cycle around Munster and Kerry. It is amazing. Parents are bucket-shaking and raising money to pay for speech therapy.

Senator McGreehan made the point about the subconscious thought process suggesting that kids with Down's syndrome have their local branch so should not be prioritised. That would be outrageous because we are extremely dependent on the HSE for services. To Ms O’Donovan’s point, if the idea is to have speech therapists in the branches and the opportunity to build specialised services in the branches, let us fund and support them to do it in a specialised manner through the branches across the country. That is a potential solution we could roll out nationwide so everybody gets the same type of service. That is a funding question.