Ms Anne O'Rourke:

It would be easily accessed. It would be quite a seamless process whereby information from parents, concerns and so on was gathered without having to fill in the CDNT form, which, I think, is seven pages with ten additional pages. Then if you look for domiciliary care allowance, it is another whatever. I would love to see a one-stop shop or an online toolkit. Deputy Toole mentioned recently that there was an online access point. I asked ChatGPT to do a flowchart for me on how to access supports for children in Ireland with additional needs and in five minutes I had a flowchart. There was Welsh spelling in it but the flowchart was not bad. It then offered to give me a whole handbook on how to access it and I am still waiting for that to happen. It is not rocket science for the experts we have in IT in Ireland to develop a system whereby parents could say, "Okay, I'm concerned about my child's speech and language issues. Where do I go?" Parents get a lot of support. The public health nurses are just incredible in the work they do on identifying children early on.

A seamless process would start from a very early age, particularly if there was a concern. There would be data gathered with parents' information. The question I always ask parents is, "What is the story?" Within five minutes I would have more information than I would have from a 20-page form from the parents about where their child is at and similarly from teachers.