Aisling Dolan (Fine Gael) | Oireachtas source

Each of the witnesses has travelled to Leinster House today and each of them is fighting for their child. Today that is what they have done by coming here. They have given their children a voice. We have the opportunity and the honour to listen and it is not only us. There will be a record of today. I thank the witnesses because speaking about personal experiences is never easy. I have heard and listened to many accounts today.

I thank Senator Carrigy for his work on this committee. He has driven so much around this and I thank the committee. I sit on the Joint Committee on Education, Further and Higher Education, Research, Innovation and Science and the Joint Sub-Committee on Mental Health. I am a guest here today. The education committee is considering the supports required in schools.

I come from Ballinasloe. I know it was mentioned earlier. There are people here from Athlone and from all around the country. As other Senators have stated, we hear about the challenge of having to travel, about the tiredness the witnesses spoke of and about having to do all this and look after their families and children and still having to fight. We deal with schools, try to support parents, try to advise them and as Mr. Devereux mentioned, we can get assessments but sometimes it is not the right assessment, for example, when we are not able to get a HSE one. We advise people to get private assessments to get their children a place. That is not good enough.

Our colleague Senator Seery Kearney spoke about the move of CDNTs from the HSE to Tusla. Disability is moving to the Tusla area of responsibility. Some of the things I call for include the streamlining of processes, using technology and smart ways of doing things. The HSE is currently dealing with many backlogs because of a lack of joined-up thinking. I would like to see and I call for smart ways of managing engagement with CDNTs and how they can get out to do assessments in a timely way. Many changes have been made in the past year or two years. We can see there are many challenges. That has been evident from everything the witnesses said today.

On the education side, I thank the committee for giving me the opportunity to speak here. The witnesses' testimonies are incredibly powerful and I want them to know that. All of them have given testimonies to represent their children, their communities and their towns. I am proud to be here and honoured to hear them.