Michael Moynihan (Cork North West, Fianna Fail) | Oireachtas source

The committee made a proposal to the Department of Health as part of its public consultation on safeguarding. What is the update on that? Where has that moved to from the Department of Health point of view?

The committee meets representatives from the disabled persons organisations a great deal. The phrase "Nothing about us without us" is very good, but sometimes when one delves deep into policies that have been developed, one feels that they really have not got to the meat of the challenges faced by people with disabilities, regardless of what those challenges might be.

Have the HSE and Department tried to develop a full list of the disabled persons organisations that it can contact whenever discussions are going on? To try to ensure we have a better society in the future, how much of the raw data is available? World health commentary would suggest an increase in autism and intellectual disabilities across the world and Ireland is also experiencing that. Is there a fundamental acceptance of the challenges? The members have spoken about the system being broken and it is broken. There was a better service 25 years ago in terms of disabilities. Maybe they were not meaningful and maybe we have expanded the services. At the same time, some services were better. Do the HSE and the Department have raw data showing the demand in five, ten, 15 or 20 years' time? Going back to the point Deputy Ellis made, for some of them their lifespan is not as great as other people's. Do they have that kind of information? The representatives of the Department of Health might answer first.