Mr. Hugh Doogan:

With the Changing Lives Initiative, in our opening statement we spoke about the information and awareness sessions we ran for parents. A lot of that involved signposting people to other services and then introducing them to strategies they can put into practice as soon as they go home.

We may have glossed over something in our opening statement. On 31 May, the Department and the Minister, Deputy O'Gorman, launched the new What Works Ireland evidence hub. The Changing Lives Initiative was one of the first five interventions to be rigorously evaluated. There are two elements to that evaluation. One is the evidence behind it and the second is the cost. We sometimes talk a lot about the cost of X, Y or Z, but it has been proven that the Changing Lives Initiative is a very cost-effective way of intervening early. As our colleagues from ADHD Ireland have said, people will have to be medicated. That is the reality. However, medication costs a lot of money. In the Changing Lives Initiative, we are trying to get in early and try to avoid the need for medication. In some cases, that will not happen. Let us call a spade a spade. However, the cost-effectiveness of the Changing Lives Initiative is a critical part of the model we are proposing. It can be rolled out to communities at low cost.