Dr. Alison Harnett:

Further to the Deputy's comment about the funding and constantly fighting for funding, one of the most powerful things that could happen would be for the full funding of the disability action plan to take place across the next three years. It is a exciting opportunity for strong investment into the sector. It needs, I suppose, multi-annual funding planning.

What is happening at the moment is that across all of the areas that we work in, whether that is residential or day services, we respond in-year and in the residential space, we respond in crisis. That is because we do not have funding that is secure for more than a year. It is a really expensive way to meet people's needs. If we take the day services example, what happens is that we are trying to lease or rent properties in the year that we need them at a very expensive rate instead of being able to plan for that. We know that people have an intellectual disability, I suppose, uniquely, from the time that they are born. It is not really an emergency that we enter into because it is a fully predictable planned need. What we really want to do is to be able to plan for those needs in a way that is good for people's outcomes, community based, integrated and good for the public funding as well because it is expensive to be consistently supporting people on solutions that you provide for in the year that they arise. If everybody could get behind the full funding and disability action plan and if we could begin to move to multi-annual funding, even if that is only nominated a number of years ahead, we would know we would have the safety to make the investment in planned support.

One of the key areas that we need to plan in terms of day service is for the demographic change. We have mentioned autism on a number of occasions across the services. People who have intellectual disability and autism need quiet spaces when they come into services. That requires capital investment and planning so that you can have the break-out rooms, the sensory spaces and a bit of outdoor space, etc. That has a cost that is different from that for people who might need something that is more integrated with a lot of other people. It is really important that we are planning ahead and not doing things at the last minute. That requires a couple of things. It requires transition planning but it also requires funding on a planned basis and not in response to an emergency or in-year requirement.