Mr. Turlough Kelly:

I will speak to the issue of trust. There is something of a perception within the Department that there is a degree of scaremongering going on from various quarters. Our experience in Down Syndrome Ireland is that the initial concerns raised with us came from parents reading the circular, noticing that complex needs was not listed as a criterion and drawing what were in the circumstances quite plausible and valid conclusions from that.

None of the engagement we have had with the Department to date has put me in a position where I could, in good conscience, go to my members and say that those concerns are unfounded, or that the specificity of complex needs is addressed elsewhere in the system. From that, it is possible to extrapolate that this breakdown in trust happened over a long period of time. I do not think that any of the engagement from the Department to date has done nearly enough to address it. We really need a definitive statement of clarification from the Department on its position regarding complex needs and the fact that it feels they are addressed within the criteria as they are. Nothing that we have got from the Department to date has established that definitively to our satisfaction.