Mr. Adam Harris:

I will take the final question on the barriers to move from the medical model to the right space model and there are a few factors behind that. There is no realisation in society of how deeply rooted our ableism is. I got an insight to this during Covid-19 because during the pandemic, we heard people say: that it is not possible live on less than €350 per week; that it is awful not being able to do what you want when you want to do it; and that they feel isolated in their communities and want to see others. You would empathise with everyone in that situation but it is not understood that this is what autistic people are asked to do every day and every year and that this is accepted as a normal reality for them. As long as we do not have disabled people working within senior positions in our health service and as long as we do not have people receiving the training they need there will always be a paternalistic view of disability that is highly damaging. A more cynical view is that the existing model is much better for the State because it is based on doing people a favour and giving people what it can, whereas if we move to the other model, it is about people being rights-holders and it is about obligations and accountability. That is what we desperately need to see.