Mark Wall (Labour) | Oireachtas source

While I do not want to hold up the meeting any further, I will first thank everybody this morning. This session has been insightful, worrying and frightening. Most of all, it has once again been educational for us to hear everything that has been said. The issue here is that we want to hear this and have it form part of our report in June. I have a great many questions but obviously we need to move on. One such question relates to the cost of having a loved one with autism. This comes up again and again. There is the cost of an assessment of need and the cost of teacher training such as Mr. Devereux had to go through. Something needs to happen here. We have spoken about carer's allowance and means testing. I do not know whether we want to put that as a question but, as a committee, we have to learn about the costs these families and teachers are facing. I have taken a great many notes today that we will need to go through as a committee but the first question I had was on the costs. Dr. Áine Roddy came before the committee a couple of weeks ago. She has done studies in this area. It really is about the costs these parents face for their loved ones. There is no doubt they will face them. Does somebody want to comment on that? We have heard a great deal of testimony today that will form part of our final report. Once again, I thank everybody for their time today. Their contributions were really insightful.