Ms Deirdre Callis:

Exactly. As somebody gets older, the condition progresses and a lot more care is required.

We are good at getting the six-week-old babies' care package in place. That is for 18 hours a week. As the child gets older, it is a real fight to get those packages expanded. When a child ages out at 18 years, he or she moves into disability services and there is no funding. We had funding for hours for an adult rejected last year. We needed ten extra hours for her care and it was rejected. That means we have been funding her care since 2019. We also have a case in Dublin where a ten-year-old who requested an additional home-care assistant for nine hours per week had that request rejected. There seems to be a lack of understanding that this is a vital requirement. We get them over the line eventually, or the parents do, but it requires a huge battle, on occasion, to get that.