Ms Margaret Lowndes:

We have not talked about preschool and secondary school. It is an absolute shock that it is one of the biggest systems. The Department of Education relies on it for information. However, its information is not always correct. As people know, when talking about preschools, we are also talking about children who are on waiting lists to be diagnosed. They are not taken into consideration either. They also add to the waiting lists for databases for autism classes and such. It is a shame that it is down to us to have to do this. We have to do it through parliamentary questions and freedom of information requests. Why can the NCSE not do the same thing? The committee needs to look at why there is no data available through the NCSE or the HSE.