Dr. Karen McAuley:

Regarding participation, crucially, the right to be heard is a core principle of children's rights which applies to all children. We know an overarching finding from the research we published, which was undertaken for us by experts in NUI Galway in 2021, called Mind The Gap, was that children with disabilities, including autistic children, are not heard. We need to acknowledge with regard to some our approaches to consulting, to hearing the views of children and young people, and facilitating their participation, that while Ireland has been progressive in this area and has done much commendable work, we still have a long way to go. It leans towards the mainstream and a majority, whoever that is.

On the mechanisms that have been put in place and the structures that are there, a lot of great work is being done. However, much more needs to be done to make them more inclusive for all children, including autistic children, and to diversify them. The best way to do that is to ask autistic children themselves how they wish to be heard and what they wish to be heard about. The State should make a point of being proactive in reaching out to be inclusive. That is what we were trying to suggest in our submission, the importance of reaching out to autistic children themselves to ask them how they want to do this.