Joan Collins (Dublin South Central, Independents 4 Change)
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I thank Mr. Harris for coming before the committee again. I have a few questions. Mr. Harris made a point about legislation along the lines of Malta’s Autism Empowerment Act 2016. Then, he proceeded to say that the "legislation would simply require the State to publish an autism strategy at regular intervals, to involve autistic people in the process of drafting". Is that exactly what Malta’s Autism Empowerment Act is? That would be very important. I refer to publishing an autism strategy at regular intervals.

The other questions are based on the assessment of needs, which Mr. Harris spoke about. We need the clinicians to deliver. What is crazy at the moment is that Australia is capturing our medical people and we are going to other countries, such as India, and are capturing their people and leaving them without the supports they need in their own country. It is a catch-22. How does Mr. Harris think we could hold onto our therapists who are coming through the system? I have been thinking about this a lot in relation to the State playing more of a role. It may be to do with paying for degrees for students to come into the system. On the basis of paying for their course, they would then give a commitment to stay in the country for ten years, eight years, six years or some period of time that would embed them in communities and clinics throughout the country. I know people want to travel because they gain a lot of experience when travelling and they can bring it back. An initiative like that could help to maintain people in the country for a period of time. What we are seeing in many of the clinics is that we cannot maintain them and we cannot recruit for them. Therefore, it is putting more pressure on the other staff who get demoralised and then they decide to leave as well. If we had a situation where we assured that all services were properly serviced, it would make a difference to people wanting to stay, because then they would have more of an ability to develop their own resources.

On the assessment of needs, I have raised the issue of principals or equivalents filling out the education needs on the assessment of needs. Is that still going on, or was that just a once-off thing because of the court case?

There is a serious situation whereby people are going to private psychologists who are not regulated. People are paying for private psychologists who are not recognised by the HSE or otherwise.

The other area I want Mr. Harris to expand on is the role of the community, which is very important. I know the hard work Margaret Lowndes, Helen Holmes and all those people and parents in Rathfarnham are doing to try to support their children. Should there be a national council of parents in the area of autism, or something like that, which could support these groups and give them a structure so they could work to advocate for autistic children? There could even be a disability national parents group that could be supported. I say this because they have a role to play. Our Lady of Hope School in Crumlin still does not have services for the children who most need them. It was opened on that basis and yet it still does not have the therapists, psychologists, etc., to work with the children. Could Mr. Harris assist us by outlining what we should do to ensure the services can be accessed by parents and children?