Mr. Ger Deering:

We need a joined-up, person-centred approach to services. We have heard a lot today about silos and different services not being joined-up. We must get to a point where we put the person and his or her needs at the centre. During the break, we were talking about transport. People with autism have diverse needs, as do many other people. The difficulty is we are coming at all services from the deliverer's perspective. We are looking at how to deliver services from the perspective of the public service providers, what is convenient for them, what works for them and where the funding is coming from. We should completely turn that on its head and put the person at the centre. We should ask what people need and then draw from the various services, which unfortunately often do not talk to each other. I am not even talking about different public bodies but about different units within the same public body. We talked about the handover from school and when somebody is suddenly no longer a child but an adult and must start all over again. They then go from adulthood into whatever people are when they are 65, when they go from 64 to 65 and have to deal with a whole new dynamic and situation. That should not be. Services should be designed to be person-centred and lifelong.