Ruairí Ó Murchú (Louth, Sinn Fein)
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There have been a significant number of meetings of this committee, and there has probably been an element of thematic repetition. I mean that in the best possible way. It all relates to a life plan for children and for citizens, as well as to the fact we do not have the latter. Dr. Matthews pointed out that many people have started this journey by learning about how bad services are and how you cannot access what you need for your kids. That is before we even speak about adult services. There is also the fact that at one stage we could have been ahead of the game, but we have managed to fall way behind in everything from services, therapies, assessments and schools.

Some of us have been very lucky with the schools our children have attended. The schools will at times tell you that they do not necessarily have the resources they need to deal with the needs of the children. To some degree, at times, they are learning from them. That is all very positive, and I agree with much of what has been said. Society has got a lot better.

I also understand that there can be bespoke needs. I will speak about our son, Turlough, as regards reasonable accommodations. He still requires many of those, but he requires fewer than he did because he is now 14. If you were to have dealt with him six or seven years ago, he would have needed a considerable amount more. You would have needed to make sure that you did not leave your arm exposed for too long. Such was the frustration, etc. As I said, we are in a different place now as regards understanding. Really, however, we just need to put the parts in place.

I will deal with TUS. Some of this relates to long before a person ever even landed with the latter. At our previous meeting, we spoke about the American system. I do not generally say anything too good about American systems, but there is an idea there that every kid between the ages of 14 and 16 needs a life plan to be put together regarding their needs. We have all heard about the difficulties of transition, whether that is from primary to secondary, or to third level and possibly to employment. There are many missing parts there. The representatives from TUS spoke about funding. They would like to have multi-annual funding in order that they can be strategic. This would be rather than being given very specific funding.

On buildings and universality of design, there is the idea of PATH 4, which builds on the types of courses right across the board. We obviously want more of this to be done better, quicker and faster.

What if we had that plan and funding was, to a degree, attached to the person in relation to the requirements and there was a long enough run-in time to going to third level? In respect of speech and language therapists SLTs, occupational therapists, OTs, or any of those services, it makes sense they would be in schools, so why would they not be in third level? It is about what exactly that shape and structure particularly works as.

On employment - we have been through it a fair bit – we need to get better in respect of funding streams for employers if they are going to introduce reasonable accommodations. There is an education piece and all the rest of it. On State services - not good projects that necessarily are being run out of third level or whatever - we need to look to ensure Intreo offices, the people who work in education and training boards, ETBs, the local enterprise offices and everything are all pushing in that direction. An education piece needs to be done for employers, especially small employers, that will be afraid and under pressure. It should be made easier for them to get funding for whatever assistive technologies or whatever else is required. How do we put that into place? If that could be answered in the next two minutes, as I always say, I will be delighted.