Mr. Adam Harris:

To start with the summer programme, I think what we really have to get back to is a simple principle, which is that we need to get to a point in our thinking where we are saying that is simply cannot be allowed to happen that people do not have access to this programme. I recognise that there is a limit that can be done within the confines of the education system. Personally, I think that ultimately, we need to look at a different contract to try to get to a point where programme provision is mandatory. I realise that that is a more complex issue that we are not going solve solely within the autism sphere. I recognise that. If that is the case, the onus goes back on the State and we must ask what it is going to provide as an alternative. It is simply unconscionable that there are families today who are facing into the summer with absolute dread because they are really facing into a summer where there will be little to no support. The impact that that has on the individual and the family in terms of well-being, participation, finance and mental health, is very significant. We need to shift our thinking and get to a point of saying that it cannot be allowed to happen that someone would not have access to the programme. When we begin to think in that way, we will get a lot more creative and we will begin to think in a much more joined-up way around how we can remove some of these barriers.

The Senator mentioned Clane. We are delighted that it is one if the communities that is becoming autism-friendly. We are doing a launch event there on 31 May. We are working with approximately 20 communities across Ireland this year. What this is really about - and I think it is important to the work of the committee as well - is that there are very clear issues around Government policy and resourcing that need to be addressed, but a lot of the problems also come from society not understanding and accepting. We need to look at how we can shift attitudes. Part of that is reaching out into the community as well. With the initiative in Clane and in towns across the country, it is about small changes in terms of communication, predictability and the sensory environment that make a big difference for autistic people. For me, what I am interested in is the long-term impact. What would it be like to grow up in a town where, instead of people feeling from a very young age that there is something wrong with them, they are broken and they need to change, they grow up in a community that says it wants to meet them halfway? We would really like to see that rolled out further.

On the assessment of need process, fundamentally, AsIAm's position is that we urgently need to review the Disability Act. It is welcome that we are reviewing the EPSEN Act at the moment, but it does not really make sense to do that independently of reviewing the Disability Act. Ultimately, we would like to see a right to services established. If people had a right to services, that would give them confidence to look at how the assessment of need process works in and of itself. Linked to that, the HSE and others might say that people do not really need an assessment, but it is the only thing they are entitled to, so therefore it is absolutely critical.

Linked to that, we need to be careful in this discussion about the fact that while families want services, a good diagnosis will help direct those services. Sometimes, what gets lost in the bureaucracy of all this is how important a diagnosis is for understanding yourself and for having that understanding of how you fit into your family. That is why that High Court judgment has restored the ability to get an autism assessment through assessment of need. That was so important. Ultimately, though, the issue is that no matter what rights you give people, they only work if you have the clinicians to deliver those services. In the private sector, if you needed a certain skill set and you could not get it, you would then move land to ensure that you got the skills you need. Fundamentally, if we are seeing officials come over from Australia every year to take our occupational therapists, OTs, our speech and language therapists, SLTs, and our psychologists, we need to ask how we make a better proposition to keep people whose skills are critical.

I totally agree with the point about adults. The reality is that you are an autistic adult for a lot longer than you are a child. That often gets overlooked. In AsIAm we have an adult support and wellbeing programme. This year, we worked with approximately 1,000 adults across the country, providing a suite of supports. For every group we set up, we are operating 20 group aid support programmes for adults at present. It will be 30 by August. We could fill every group three times over. We need to see a lot more support and focus in that space. That is critical.