Pauline Tully (Cavan-Monaghan, Sinn Fein) | Oireachtas source

Sinn Féin will support this Bill. I commend the Labour Party on bringing it forward. My party colleagues in Sinn Féin and I supported a similar Bill from the Regional Group in October 2021. It is important that we see the development and implementation of a cross-departmental and multiagency autism strategy that has legislative underpinning. In April 2019, my colleague, Deputy Funchion, moved a motion on behalf of Sinn Féin calling for the development of an autism empowerment strategy and the establishment of an Oireachtas committee on autism. The motion received cross-party and widespread support and a commitment was given at the time to deliver on both of these aims. Yesterday, the first public meeting of the Joint Committee on Autism took place, having been established in February, almost three years after the motion calling for it. More than three years after the motion was passed, the strategy is still not complete.

In April 2021, the Minister of State, Deputy Rabbitte, announced her intention to establish a working group to develop an autism innovation strategy with the aim of launching it in early 2022. I acknowledge that Covid restrictions held this up but it was only at the end of April this year that a public consultation process was launched and only in early June that an open call for expressions of interest to join the autism innovation strategy oversight and advisory group was issued. The Minister, Deputy O'Gorman, indicated that, on the back of the initial consultation, a draft strategy will be produced and a second public consultation will commence. I welcome the progress on the draft strategy and acknowledge that Covid restrictions have slowed this process somewhat but I would like to see this delivered without any further delay because three years since the initial motion is more than enough.

Autism is a lifelong developmental condition that affects how people communicate and interact with the world. While it is linked with challenges, it is also associated with cognitive strengths and talents. Autism is said to be a spectrum because, while autistic people can experience the world differently in specific areas such as sensory processing and communication, not all people will have the same profile of differences.

A number of key policy issues need to be addressed with regard to autism. The first relates to assessments of need and access to therapy services. The Disability Act 2005 provides for an assessment of need to determine the health or educational services required by a person with a disability. The Education for Persons with Special Educational Needs, EPSEN, Act 2004 seeks to provide for an assessment of special educational need so that further provision can be made for a child with such needs to be educated in an inclusive environment. While the Disability Act was fully commenced, sections 3 to 13, inclusive, of the EPSEN Act have not been commenced. This is significant because the two Acts were drafted to work in concert with one another.

In the absence of the procedure under the 2004 Act, students who require an assessment of their educational needs are applying for an assessment of need under the 2005 Act, which has put increasing pressure on the 2005 Act mechanism. To try to relieve this pressure and speed up the process, the HSE introduced a preliminary team assessment in January 2020. However, after approximately 10,000 children had gone through these assessments, the process was found not to comply with Disability Act and these assessments have now been stopped. Each of the approximately 10,000 preliminary team assessments has to be reviewed and each family engaged with to establish whether additional assessments are required. This is a significant waste of time for children, parents and therapists, not to mention the waste of public money, and the waiting list continues to expand.

With regard to appropriate school places for children with autism, all children have a constitutional right to education. Under the UNCRPD, people with disabilities must have access to education on an equal basis with others in the community they live in. There is a programme for Government commitment to ensure every child with an additional educational need has an appropriate school place, yet a recent AsIAm survey revealed that at least 260 children do not have an appropriate school place for this September. The true number is likely to be much higher. We know that 120 children in Dublin alone have no appropriate school place. It is likely that many of these children have autism. The Department of Education and the NCSE have access to data on the true number of children who require a place but have not planned or acted accordingly.

I will highlight the severe lack of employment supports for autistic people. More than 85% of autistic people are either unemployed or underemployed. Recent research, carried out by AsIAm in collaboration with IrishJobs.ie, revealed numerous perceived barriers to obtaining employment and found that the workplace is generally considered unaccommodating to the needs of autistic adults.

There are many other issues but I am limited by the time allocated. I again commend the Labour Party on introducing the legislation, which we will support.

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