Ms Debbie Carr:

They may say they are not talking about me but they could be talking about one of my friends because autism families stick together. Yes, I think a lot more education could be provided. There is a lot of money spent on psychology and psychiatry. We have been diagnosed so many times for speech and language, cognitive, everything. If I feel my child has changed on the spectrum, then I could request a new diagnosis instead of these constant diagnoses. It can sometimes feel like parents are being pacified on the grounds that they have been spoken to and something has been done for them. The point is that no, nothing has been done as the parents already knew this. The money spent on that would be better spent on education and more therapies, a lot more help with the psychology and a lot more help with the child.

My child has had depression. He has had suicidal tendencies. He had a criminal incident against him. He did not get any therapy for it because he is autistic. That is very frustrating. Apart from his autism, he is a human being and he is entitled to have other things happen to him in life that he may need help on. There seems to be ignorance within the HSE in respect of dealing with people who are autistic. I don't just mean the general public, I mean people who think they have got knowledge on autism need to be more aware of other things that happen in life that people deal with.

I would like autism to be a lot more public. It still feels hidden. I used to be very jealous of a friend of mine who had a child with Down's syndrome. I used to say they can see it and I wanted to get a t shirt with my son's picture on it and a caption saying "I've got autism". Often people who do not have a child with autism can get caught up with not labelling them. I feel like asking them to please label him, because it will take so much pressure off him and me to perform in society the way they expect normal people to perform.