Annie Hoey (Labour) | Oireachtas source

I apologise for missing the beginning of the meeting. I was attending another committee meeting across the way so am hopping from one to the other. I am particularly interested in the area of adults who have been diagnosed with ADHD. We have touched on this a good bit. I have a number of friends from whom the penny dropped when their children were going through services. We all know the story, yada, yada, yada. We know the diagnostic options are difficult because, as has been mentioned, even with money there are very limited ways to do that now. I notice online, whether it is due to algorithms on TikTok or whatever, a proliferation of online offerings of people being able to pay and go for a diagnosis. I assume many of them are legitimate options for people to go to and registrations can be checked. As experts in the area, do the witnesses have recommendations for people who do not currently live in one of the four catchment areas and who have come to this realisation and are really struggling? Perhaps they have been struggling their whole lives. I think in particular of women who went through a long period of masking. I do not know what it is about women in their 30s where the mask suddenly comes off in every which way in their lives. It feels to me, from anyone I spoke to, that once that realisation has happened, there is no going back. Obviously we tell people to research who they are giving their money to and all of those things. How do we support people if they do not live in one of the four catchment areas and are considering spending money? I assume a lot of them are legitimate but I do not know. As I get bombarded with advertisements, there is obviously a market for it. What are we doing to make sure people do not find themselves going down a route of a not-safe diagnosis because if a person wants medication they have to have their psychiatrist and so forth. Will the witnesses advise in that area?