Micheál Carrigy (Fine Gael)
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I have a few questions or points myself. In Mr. Harris's opening statement, he mentioned the HSE review of 2017 and the fact that recommendations were made in that. Here we are in 2023 and not all of those recommendations have been implemented. Will Mr. Harris give us a synopsis of where that is and the recommendations that were made at the time? Personally, I agree with him with regard to the Maltese legislation. That was my starting point back in 2020 on this journey looking to get legislation brought in and put in place to make changes. I strongly believe that is the way to go.

It is ridiculous. We are a First-World economy striding ahead on many issues European-wide, yet we are so far behind. We are looking to meet with Scottish Autism and have a meeting organised with the Scottish minister. They have actually now reviewed their ten-year strategy and are implementing changes based on what they see as having gone wrong and what has worked while we still have not produced our strategy ten years after our neighbours.

It shows how far behind we have been. It is important that both the committee's work and that strategy is right and that we do not miss anything within that.

Regarding supports for parents, Mr. Harris made the point that every child and young adult has a right to those supports but that they are ultimately not available or we are waiting for local charities and parents' groups that have been set up across the country. Unfortunately, there is not a geographical spread of those groups and there are glaring omissions where there are no supports. My local area is one of them and that is something that as a public representative I have to and will rectify.

I will not ask Mr. Harris to comment on it, but to unfund is quite striking. I made a comment to another organisation that was at the committee a number of weeks ago with significant multi-million euro assets and yet there are parents' groups striving to fundraise with bag packs etc. to give support and services to parents. We need to make sure we have a system throughout the country where there are no omissions with regard to supports for parents and children and that we fund it as a Government; that is the way forward.

The summer programme was mentioned by a number of members and it is particularly disappointing in my own region, the Shannonside region which is Longford, Westmeath, Cavan, Monaghan, Roscommon and Leitrim. We only have two schools in that entire region that will provide a programme of up to two weeks and in that case it is not for all of the school's students. Based on the numbers I put together only around 14% of the students of special schools in that entire region, which takes in six counties, will have accessibility to the summer programme this year which is extremely disappointing. However, overall, we have seen an increase of more than 20 other schools that have taken it on board so we need to get into a situation where if there are other organisations within a region that would be prepared to take on and put a programme in place, that is what we need to do. We need to make sure that access is there for as many students as possible.

I thank Mr. Harris for his work and his support to us as a committee. We still have a bit to go before we finalise our report. I thank Mr. Harris for his support with our Leinster House project and the training for us as Oireachtas Members. A number of our committee members have said that they themselves have been educated and that is our job and our role, to make sure more Oireachtas Members have a better knowledge of this area. Ultimately something I will look for is a monitoring committee within Leinster House to monitor the implementation of the recommendations the committee will make. That has to be the case because we do not want a situation where this report ends up with the Department. A lot of reports have been produced over the past ten or 12 years yet nothing has really been implemented. In my role as Chair and on behalf of the committee members that is something we do not want to happen and we will make sure it does not happen. We have waited for too long. Too many people have been let down, too many families have been let down and that has to change. That is a commitment I give in my role as chair of this committee and personally as an Oireachtas member.

Would Mr. Harris like to make any final comments?