Ms Claire Earley:

On my own personal story, my daughter, Sophia, is nine years old and she was diagnosed at the age of two and a-half. She had all the early interventions and she went to an early intervention class. Sophia has never had the same teacher for a full year of school, so early intervention kind of went out the window in regards to helping her. We had been talking about integrating into mainstream pre-Covid-19 but now we are on reduced hours. Sophia regressed a lot during Covid-19 and during the lockdown, as I am sure most children did. We noticed traits of attention deficit hyperactivity disorder, ADHD, during the lockdowns and we queried it with our teams. There was the upheaval of the CDNTs being developed. We were seen last August by Sophia's psychologist, who recommended she be referred to CAMHS and assessed for ADHD. Yet, on January 19, they closed our case without seeing my daughter because there was no clear indication of ADHD in their opinion. They made that decision without seeing my daughter, Sophia. Our doctor and her psychologist, that is, two medical personnel practitioners, both recommended an ADHD assessment but yet CAMHS turned us down without seeing her. We are fighting it and we are appealing it but it seems to be such a common thing. It is echoed a lot by the parents on the Facebook groups who are looking for help with what to do. What do you do with something like that, other than appeal it and appeal it? Meanwhile, our daughter is struggling and that is affecting her schooling, so now she is on reduced hours in school because she just cannot cope with her levels of anxiety and her behaviour.

Behaviour is a language, in my opinion. If a behaviour is there, something is happening to cause it. She is pre-verbal, so she cannot tell us what is happening in her little head. She can tell us what she wants and what she does not want, but conversation-wise, it is a different story. I really feel she has been failed by the system in so many ways. Every parent here just wants support for their children. That is echoed through our group, Autism Parents Athlone. We fought tirelessly for a new class to open. Thankfully, it has but by God, it took them long enough to open it. Now, there is a new list and there are more children for this September. We are now starting first foot on the plate. We are fighting for another class, which, fingers crossed, we will have. However, if we do not have it, there will be more children in September who will either have to take an hour of a bus journey before they even reach school or they will be at home for homeschooling, which is just so hard to think about. Families have to give up work just to stay at home and to bring in tutors, that is, if the tutors turn up. There have been families that have qualified for tutors but the tutors do not turn up.

Infinity Friends is a place where my heart lies at the moment. It gives the children in Athlone and surrounding areas, children from Longford and Mullingar also come over to us, somewhere to be where they do not have to mask. They do not have to put on a show for people and do not have perform. They can come in and just be themselves. They can take part in activities if they want but they do not have to. There is no pressure put on them. The parents come in, take that deep breath, sigh and say, "They can be themselves here. There is no judgment here." The HSE is sending families to us. They are coming to us saying that their team has told them to ring us because it is somewhere for their children to go. We are doing this on a voluntary basis. I work full-time for An Post. I do not have any more fuel in the tank to provide more and more clubs for more and more children but it absolutely kills me to turn children away. We are therefore eating into family time to provide support for more families. It is heartbreaking to hear the stories of what the children and families have been through.

I am thankful to be here today to be able to voice what we are doing in Athlone and to be able to hear from all the other parents and advocacy groups around the country. It is a pleasure to be among them and I thank them so much for everything they do.