Ms Miriam Kenny:

From a legislative point of view, my understanding is that the assessment of need must be provided but that the State does not have to provide services. It is like saying to anybody else who has a diagnosis to do with any other disability or anything else "We are terribly sorry about that, there you go, that is what your need is and we cannot actually meet it." One is not told this in any other situation. I am not trying to medicalise autism but people are not told this in any other condition or anything else, be it a child or an adult. We are told, "We are definitely sorry about that but there you go, this is what your need is and we will see you in about ten years". That does not happen in other areas so why should it happen in this area? We must go back to the expectation piece and the accountability piece: we need to expect much better from our services.

I was thinking about the service aspect. The supplementary information that I sent to the committee was just information that I put together myself. We have national organisations. Do they not survey their customers to see what their satisfaction is like? From that, one would develop a service that meets the needs of the individuals that are there.

Another point I would like to raise today is that we have had phenomenal support from our politicians. They do not always get thanks for that but today I would like to make public thanks for that. We have had incredible support. In Dublin 6W, we have three different constituencies. We have had such great support and we just wanted to say this. Most people want to do the right thing here but we now need to move forward, stop the talking and get some things on paper. It is so difficult because there are so many things that we would like to say to Deputy Buckley in response to his question. We must come back and remember that it is about our children. We must give them a voice and that is what we are doing here today.