Erin McGreehan (Fianna Fail) | Oireachtas source

First, I want to say hello to Ms Soraghan properly. She is a good Louth woman. It is great to hear a good strong Louth accent talking to me. It is always comforting, particularly when it is so articulate and full of wisdom. I could listen to her all day.

I congratulate both ILMI and AsIAm on the work they has done. In recent years, I have come to see what they do, witness it and see the benefits the organisations have on people's individual lives. Not many of us can say we make impacts on people's lives every single day, but both organisations do that. The organisations instil in the people who come to them the audacity to have a little bit of ambition that people can do things and be proud of who they are. Mr. Harris spoke about the preconception that autistic people go through the education system and then go to a day centre as a preconceived pathway.

That troubles me. They were developed to support people and for good reasons but we now need to reimagine what we have and what we can do. People can go into further education, employment or whatever they are interested in. Ms Soraghan spoke about her organisation's youth collective. We all like to find our tribes for different aspects of our lives. When you find your tribe, it gives you many opportunities.

I want to delve deeper into the one-stop shop. We spoke about that earlier. If I, as an individual, go to a one-stop shop, what am I going to get? How can I support AsIAm in making that a national service? What can we do to support ILMI's youth collective, which allows young people to come together and have the guts to shake the pot a little bit? That is exactly what ILMI is doing. It provides for people who want to make friends but also get involved in policy change. It also provides for those who just want to have a good time. How can we, as policy-makers in this House, support organisations like ILMI in driving that out nationally so that people can find their tribe and their friends and have the audacity to have ambition and so that doors will be opened for them or they will understand how to smash down the doors themselves?