Ms Julie Tonge:

I thank Senator Flynn. On the cost of diagnosis, what is needed is a public service for adults as well as for children. That is what has to be made available. I have been in UCD for 14 years now. I have not read every student's report diagnosing autism but I have read many of them. I have only ever seen one from a public diagnostic service. The vast majority of students who are diagnosed as adults - as young adults a lot of the time - have had to pay privately for that diagnosis. In the majority of cases, they get no support, follow-up or interventions afterwards. Public services are definitely needed and the support teams need to be multidisciplinary, as I have mentioned.

The reference to the visit to Naas made me think about employment. Some of our big companies are doing employment for autistic people and other people with disabilities quite well. It is much more challenging for smaller employers, and daunting I might even say sometimes, because they really do not know how to support a person properly.

A good example regarding employment is the Willing Able Mentoring, WAM, programme, which is a mentoring programme set up by the Association for Higher Education Access and Disability, AHEAD, in Ireland. It supports employers to take on graduates as interns but the employer is also supported. This is something that a transition service could also do. It could be the link between the support services and the employer, helping the employer to support the autistic person in the workplace and helping such employers to determine appropriate supports for that person. That is another model to be considered.

I agree that the parks are miles behind in providing sensory spaces for autistic children. I have an autistic child myself and when he was younger, he would not go to a park or birthday party or anything like that. Improvement in this area is definitely very much needed. As the Senator said, it is not just bricks and mortar, but it is these children being able to see inclusion from the start and not feeling that they are excluded. When they get to different life stages such as going to school or moving on either to employment, further education or higher education, it is important that they know they will be included in life more generally.