Ruairí Ó Murchú (Louth, Sinn Fein)

Gabhaim buíochas leis an gCathaoirleach. Tá fáilte roimh na finnéithe go léir anseo. One of the reasons for this meeting was on the basis that the autism committee would have met with a number of the organisations before. We had the issue where the State had attempted its alternative to assessment of need which did not work out very well, and I was taken by the fact that somebody said that what many of the experts had said was there would have been no conversation with the witnesses' organisations on that. It is fair enough to have a conversation on everything from assessment to therapies and best practice. I think we are all won over on in-school therapies. My fear is that, for those in special schools, applications to those schools will go through the roof.

I also get that we have not had the real conversation. Sometimes there is a fear around whether these therapies will be based completely in the school setting and will not involve parents. None of that particularly works.

I will ask a straightforward question. What would best practice look like with regard to assessments and therapies, when we are starting from here and not from the perfect place where we have a whole set of in-school therapies?