Micheál Carrigy (Fine Gael) | Oireachtas source

The Minister of State has responsibility for older persons and I ask that plans are future proofed for persons on the autism spectrum.

We know from our discussion the numbers are increasing, that is, younger persons on the autism spectrum are going to be older persons. There is always that fear, especially from parents, because suddenly all these supports end at 18 years of age and the Minister of State has made a comment on that. Any policies must be future-proofed to ensure the supports are available and all parents - including me, as the parent of an autistic son - know they will be available for the whole of life. That is extremely important.

What Ms Gray said about the strategy was alarming. Am I correct in saying there were only 51 submissions made to the strategy? A lot of recommendations are going to come from those proposals, but there was a very limited number of submissions. I looked at details only in the last couple of days. Even the Isle of Man, which is a small island, received 350-odd submissions to its policy from a population of less than 100,000. I am wary. We need to have a focused second look at some of the recommendations to ensure they are not skewed in a certain direction. One aspect of the discussion is the issue of applied behavioural analysis, ABA. Everyone was talking about ABA and it being removed, yet it is suitable for some children. A support or therapy that is beneficial to children should not be withdrawn. It may not be beneficial to all children but it is to some. We should look at this issue because I was extremely surprised to see the figure of 51 submissions. Why that was the case I do not know, but the figure is too low for us to be focusing on developing a strategy based on that alone.

On the vacancies, at one stage last year, my local CDNT had 3.8 positions covering the whole area, which has a population of over 45,000. We had over 700 children on the waiting list for therapies and 245 waiting on an assessment of need. We are all conscious of the challenges ahead, but what about the places in colleges? I had this discussion with my local CHO 12 to 18 months ago. There was talk of scholarships and the HSE and State funding those positions in college in return for a minimum number of years working in the system, within primary care or the CDNT. We have been talking about it a long time and we need to know now. By September 2023, extra courses should be in place to bring professionals into the system. I am aware that will take four years. Have we looked at graduate programmes where those in the teaching profession, social care or the medical profession would be able to do a 12-month degree to top up and go into speech and language? I know significant numbers of people who would be more than qualified to give that therapy and support, yet we are limited to those who get high points getting into a small number of places in colleges. We are probably causing the problem ourselves by not increasing the number of courses.