Ms Geraldine Moran:

We will start with the roadmap, which relates to the period 2023 to 2026. The roadmap highlights many of the issues the Deputy referred to, such as those relating to staffing, assessments of need, waiting lists and growing service demand. We are just one year into the roadmap. The difficulty is that there have already been a number of issues with it, such as that it is not fit for purpose. There has been a great deal of intervention by the likes of Fórsa and the staff on the ground, who are saying that this plan was set out without any consultation with staff, children's disability network team, CDNT, managers or those who are expected to deliver the service. There was lack of consultation, but now consultation is beginning to happen.

Going back to what we are about, we go way back before this. Our research started in 2007, when this and PDS were just conceptualised. We looked at how we needed to provide, as Dr. O’Leary stated, a service that is equitable for all. Some of the challenges we face now existed previously, and that is what PDS was set up to address. Unfortunately, just because we changed the model does not necessarily mean we get results. In the research we highlight that decisions were made and plans and pathways were put in place without looking at the local and national evidence of what was working and what was not. In addition, international evidence regarding what does and does not work elsewhere was not considered. We are not saying we can take an amazing model from Australia, New Zealand or wherever and apply it to the Irish context. However, we can look at a model and the evidence base relating to it and say that there is evidence to support it. Unfortunately, this has not been the case.

Many years have passed since 2009. Now is the time that we must almost call a halt to this and stop trying to chop and change. We need to go back to what we know are evidence-based strategies in order that we can move forward with a proper plan in place and not make decisions on a whim. We will put staff in schools and take staff out of schools. We will put multidisciplinary terms, MDTs, here or there. If that does not work, we will employ private therapists. The Deputy highlighted a number of issues relating to staffing, assessments of need and waiting lists. We need to go down a layer below that, look at it and ask why it has not worked. Those are surface issues. They are extremely important, but we need to go back to the research. That is what Dr. O’Leary and I are seeking to address as part of our work in the universities. We do not have the answers for all of these questions, but we hope that this is one important factor to lead us towards those answers.