John Lyons (Dublin North West, Labour) | Oireachtas source

First, on behalf of my Labour Party colleagues, I compliment Deputy McCarthy on bringing forward this Bill. Second, without blowing his own trumpet, the Minister brought a sense of real-life experience to this debate. For anyone listening, it is safe to state that the common dominator between everyone present, be they in the Gallery or in the Chamber or watching at home, is they all can relate to such life experience, which can help one to understand and further one's ideas and concepts towards something different. At the outset, I will speak on the concept of disability. I worked as a teacher for 14 years before entering the Dáil and about halfway through my career, I returned to pursue postgraduate studies on special education. Ironically, I was not able to undertake such postgraduate studies until I had experience of working in the field of special education but I got there in the end. The training I received while pursuing the aforementioned studies helped me to become a better teacher full stop. It opened my eyes to things and experiences that were in front of me but which I simply could not see without that little bit of additional knowledge. One such item was an understanding of autism. Having spent a fair amount of time on the autistic spectrum disorder in the course of my postgraduate studies, I remember distinctly the characteristics of Asperger's syndrome being described to me one day in college. As the characteristics were being displayed on an overhead projector, the penny dropped that I had a 16 year old student in one of my fifth year classes who pretty much had every single characteristic on display. However, it had not been noted as no one had identified him. It was a life-changing experience for me because I was able to see this person in a way that lots of other people did not. I was able in some way to facilitate his life into my life and allow learning to happen because that is what my role was in school.

On the concept of disability, society's understanding of disability has changed over the years and it still needs to change a little more. One can go back to the story of Christy Brown as portrayed in the film "My Left Foot", to which everyone can relate. There was a scene in which Christy Brown and his mother, father and all the kids were sitting in the kitchen. Christy was on the floor and until this point, his father had only perceived him as a son who really could do nothing. He perceived him as being someone who was completely disabled, who could not engage with life and could not speak, write or do anything for himself. People will remember how the moment came when Christy picked up a piece of chalk and began to write what his father initially thought was just a triangle. While his father dismissed it as being only a triangle, Christy's mother turned around and told him to leave Christy to work for a while, upon which Christy wrote the word, "Mam". All of a sudden, Christy Brown's father had a life-changing experience in which he perceived his son as being something beyond his previous perceptions. He saw his son for the talent he possessed but which everyone - the father in particular - had not seen. It is safe to state that from that day onwards, this was a life changing experience for the father and then for the son.

As anyone who has seen this film will know, people with that extent of physical disability were perceived in Irish society at that time as being ineducable. They were not people who should be seen to be going to school, as their value and worth to society were questioned. I am glad to state this has changed but more recently, disability also has been perceived to be a problem with the person. The perception has been that society is okay and the issue lies within the person. I have always tried to teach kids in school that the disability is not really the problem of the individual. Instead, it is the problem of society to acknowledge the disability and to change itself to facilitate having the minimum amount of issues to overcome to participate in society fully. In one tiny example, wheelchair-accessible buses are a recent innovation. Any wheelchair user's disability really concerns the issue of society not providing wheelchair access in the form of accessible buildings or transport to enable him or her to engage successfully with society.

In many ways, as Deputy McCarthy said, our concept of autism is often that of a hidden disability. It is not something people can point to and put their finger on because it often lies within. One of the best descriptions of autism was outlined in the book, The Curious Incident of the Dog in the Night-Time, which I used in school all the time. Many people have read it and I recommend that book to the parents of autistic children who approach me and to family friends who have had children who were subsequently diagnosed with autism because it is the closest description I can give them to help them to understand what their child's life might be like. The book was written by Mark Haddon and the main character is Christopher Boone who is a 15 year old. It is a murder mystery and it is about him trying to solve who killed the black poodle owned by his neighbour, Mrs. Shears. He does not describe himself as having autism, nor does the author refer to it, but Christopher describes himself as a mathematician with some behavioural issues. Interestingly, the author wrote on a blog that this was not written only about a child with Asperger's syndrome. He said it is about somebody who is an outsider in society and who sees the world in a surprising and revealing way. There is a message in that for all of us.

A problem exists with our lack of understanding and with the lack of provision of services to facilitate full participation by people with autism in our society. We experience that in schools. Unfortunately, with my hand on my heart, I can safely say that while there were many effective and good teachers in my schools, they did not understand autism beyond its definition and, therefore, they did not facilitate the learning that was needed to allow some of the children we had to have a positive learning experience because they did not have the tools.

We have an opportunity through the extension of the higher diploma in education, which I completed to become a secondary school teacher, from a one year to a two year course to provide for special education needs training. I have said to the Minister for Education and Skills that this is surely an opportunistic time to ensure every person who undertakes this two-year course to be trained as a special educational needs teacher in order that we are all equipped with the knowledge it took me five or six years in my career to understand so that I could engage with that 16 year old in a way to which he was entitled.

I am conscious parents are in the Visitors Gallery. They are the experts because they have been dealing with the issues we are debating before we even knew they were issues. They have been trying to explain their difficulties. They sometimes do not get sleep for days on end and try to cope with circumstances we could not even imagine. The voice of the parents must be at the centre of the national autism strategy Deputy McCarthy proposes in the legislation if the strategy is to be achieved because they have an expertise nobody else has in this field. They have lived, walked, slept and breathed the experience of living with somebody with autism. In many cases, they live with children who have not been diagnosed on the autism spectrum and, hopefully, the Bill will deal with this.

If we are committed to equal citizenship and to acknowledging that every one of us, whether we are gay or straight or whether we have autism or use a wheelchair and if we are entitled to the proper services to live our life with full dignity, there is an onus on the Government to aspire to that. Deputy McCarthy was honest when he said today is the first step of many to achieve a society that recognises that every citizen is equal. There is an onus on society to provide those services to ensure maximum participation by every individual born into and living in it.

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