Ms Davida Hartman:

It is funny but in Ireland, as members are hearing today, we are in the unique position of having a great many autistic-led organisations that are already providing world-class training in this area. How do we prioritise it? At a Government level, I do not know. However, the training, the people to train and the programmes are there. It is just a matter of having the willingness to roll that out.

I agree with everything Nem said. Autistic people are not being recognised. The issues Nem raised about GPs and other professionals having outdated views of the autistic experience is very much what we hear every single day. Many people coming to the practice would say they think they are autistic and asked their GP and various other people about it but all those professionals would have said they could not be autistic, that because they are married, have kids and are doing okay, they are not autistic, even if they tick all the boxes. There are very outdated views out there among professionals who actually really want to help.

Even within mental health services, there is also the issue of people having outdated views of the autistic experience, for sure, but there are also issues around willingness within services to do the autism assessments. There are issues with services saying they do not do autism assessments and that needs to be done somewhere else, even when the knowledge is there. That is another issue. It is not just about training. It is about training but it is also about more of a willingness within services to do that work and not silo into various areas.