Donnchadh Ó Laoghaire (Cork South Central, Sinn Fein) | Oireachtas source

I commend Deputies Funchion and Ó Caoláin on bringing forward the motion. As a society and certainly as a state, we are failing people with autism. Every child deserves a chance to develop and grow to achieve his or her full potential and every time the State and society fail to provide services, assessments and supports, it becomes that bit harder for a child to reach his or her full potential. As a society, we are failing children with autism and nowhere is this more true than in Cork. There are many statutory funded schools and organisations that do great work, including Scoil Triest, St. Gabriel's, Sonas, the Brothers of Charity and Scoil Cara which I have mentioned in this House on many occasions when discussing multidisciplinary teams. However, despite the efforts of these agencies, we have inadequate services. We have the worst waiting lists in Ireland, with the number of assessments awaiting completion in Cork city and county at the end of last year at over 1,000. When assessments are not carried out quickly - invariably they are not - services are slow to follow. They are slow to follow in any event. What Deputy O'Reilly said registered with me having regard to what I hear from parents. It is a fight. Everything is a fight. If one needs services for one's school, it is a fight. If one needs services at home, it is a fight. Everything they get and whatever they get which is usually a long way short of for what they might ask or require comes following a fight.

We are fortunate that in many instances community and voluntary services have stepped up to the mark. I highlight, in particular, the Rainbow Club which is based in Mahon Community Centre in Cork. It was started in 2015 by Jon and Karen O'Mahony. It has since grown to operate at full capacity of 623 children. There is a waiting list of more than 226 families. People are often referred to it by the HSE when they cannot access other services. It is incredible to me that a voluntary service would have a waiting list of this scale. It says to me the State is failing when a voluntary organisation has had to step in.

I also commend Tony O'Donovan from Togher who has piloted autism-friendly shopping days in many shopping centres.

Those are voluntary efforts, however. The Government needs to step forward and show the same initiative as those voluntary organisations. That is what we need and that is what this motion is calling for.

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