Mr. Adam Harris:

I thank the Cathaoirleach. It is an important issue. Last year we polled the community for the first time ever and a majority of families we heard from, that is, 1,603 families, accessed their diagnoses privately, as opposed to publicly. That shows how broken the HSE diagnostic system has become. A real problem for families is that not only must they access the private system but there is now often a waiting list for private assessments because the public system has got so bad. We are in a situation where the State has not defined what actually constitutes an assessment. Other countries have clear national guidelines around assessment but Ireland does not. Therefore, families get an assessment only to find out that it does not meet the criteria, it was not worded correctly or in the worst scenario, the assessment was done by a professional who is not qualified due to a lack of regulation. There is a need for national guidelines on assessment to feed into the education process. We have a broken system in that within the health system, people are continuously told they do not need a diagnosis and in the education system they are told they do not need a diagnosis, except under certain circumstances. Often, families are told different things by different Departments and one system is a failure. This issue is an example of one issue having a consequence on another system. That is worrying. While the National Council for Special Education, NCSE, will be conducting these reviews, there needs to be an independence to them. That is the most important point. If the Department is as confident in this allocation model as it says it is, it should not fear an independent appeals process.