Dr. Ciar?n Seoighe:

I will start by giving a contextual perspective, after which my colleagues can take over. What we have heard is the public's interest. Where people have expressed an interest in something related to autism, we can trawl through the questions for it. Many of the submissions were policy related - not so much about research, but about where we can make lives better, for example, making the education system more inclusive, more training for teachers, GPs and gardaí, and increasing awareness. They were also about making it easier for people who were autistic to contribute and be included. What came across in the submissions was that many of them were deeply personal and drew from people's lived experiences. These submissions represented a large cohort of what we received. There were suggestions relating to researching different areas that may or may not have been related to autism. The researchers can examine those and see whether they are areas they are not considering right now. All of our research colleagues have access to those suggestions and can read them to see whether there is anything they have missed. The vast majority of the submissions had to do with supports, education, care, diagnoses and including autistic people.