Micheál Carrigy (Fine Gael)
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In your opening statement, you said that it is not acceptable for an individual with autism to have to wait an extended time for an assessment of needs or for supports or therapies and that is the crux of it. As I said at a meeting with representatives of CHO 8 on Friday last, staffing levels within the children's disability network teams, CDNTs, are a disgrace. We have heard evidence from families of having to pay up to €1,800 for private assessments. We have also heard stories of people getting assessments that are not being recognised. It is not acceptable, to be quite honest.

I like the tiered model. That is the way forward. Having listened to the explanation of that model today, I have a better understanding of it and I believe it is the way to go. There will be two more pilot areas, following on from the two that have already been done. What CHO areas will those pilots take place in? I will talk about my experience with the CDNT in Longford. Last April we met the Minister of State at the Department of Health, Deputy Rabbitte because there were more than 230 children waiting for an assessment of needs and more than 700 waiting for services. Our team is now worse than it was at that time. During the summer we had 3.8 whole time equivalents on the team. There was no social worker, 0.8 in physiotherapy, 0.5 in speech and language therapy, one in occupational therapy and things were just getting worse.

A number of members have raised the issue of third level education. Who is responsible within the HSE for liaising with the Department of Further and Higher Education, Research, Innovation and Science? Whoever that is has not done his or her job because there is not a sufficient number of graduates coming through the third level system. There are four colleges that run occupational therapy courses in the country, with around 90 professionals graduating every year. Statisticians could figure out the number of those graduates that will go into the public system and the number that will go travelling, based on available data. Somebody has not done his or her job. The HSE has not engaged with the Department of Further and Higher Education, Research, Innovation and Science across all of the services, including physiotherapy, occupational therapy and speech and language therapy. The therapists are not there so somebody has failed. Families and children have been failed because this work has not been done. We have more than 700 vacancies because we do not have enough qualified people coming through the system. As Deputy Casey said earlier, we should know the numbers and percentages. We should know how many children are going to need services and we should have front-loaded courses at third level in order to have graduates coming through. Whoever is responsible for that within the HSE has failed and that is why we are in this situation.

Reference was made to the Disability Act. What engagement has the HSE had with the Government with regard to changing that legislation vis-à-visassessments and services? This issue was highlighted a number of times today. What engagement has taken place and is there resistance to making amendments to the Disability Act? Reference was also made earlier to family engagement and I have read about autism support workers. In my experience, it is the professionals who do the family engagement but while that is happening, services are not being provided for children. The family engagement should be undertaken by non-professionals or by autism support workers. They should be giving courses to parents. I have seen that in my own local area, with professionals giving courses even though we have a massive shortage of such professionals and ultimately it results in fewer services being provided to children.

I invite our guests to comment further on the school inclusion model, which I believe is the way forward but I am a bit worried that there will be no HSE involvement in it. Do I sense a conflict with regard to the school inclusion model? As Deputy Ó Murchú said, taking children out of a setting in which they are comfortable, namely their school, and bringing them into a clinical setting, with parents having to take time off work, is not ideal. I have seen the centre in my own local area and I made complaints about it when I first went into it. It was not even properly painted and was not an appropriate setting for children. The model involving the school, where they are comfortable, is better. We have met the teachers' unions recently and discussed the fact that we need to change the training for teachers to enable them to work with children with autism. We should also be training the SNAs to provide some elements of therapy on a daily basis but that must be backed up by professionals coming into the schools regularly.

Deputy Pádraig O'Sullivan raised the issue of professionals in special schools. Reference was made to 104 out of 136 special schools. Why were only 104 schools picked, and not the full 136? Is that a manpower issue? There are lots of questions there and I invite Mr. O'Regan to respond.