Mark Ward (Dublin Mid West, Sinn Fein) | Oireachtas source

I too thank the Labour Party for bringing forward the Bill and allowing me the opportunity to speak to the challenges people with autism face. Some challenges they have are pronounced, such as those relating to social interaction and communication, repetitive and restrictive patterns of behaviour and sensory processing. These challenges are bad enough, but the greatest challenge they face is in getting a timely intervention that will allow them to reach their full potential.

I commend those in the Public Gallery from all the campaign groups and particularly that from my area, the Clondalkin autism support network. I welcome two members of that group in particular, Jennifer and Lisa, and thank them for their tireless campaigning and their will to fight for the best services for their children, but they should not have to fight to meet the basic needs of their children. They should not have to fight for appropriate school places for their children or to ensure those school places are within their communities, or to make sure their children are part of the school community and not apart from it, or to get the proper therapeutic interventions their children need, such as occupational and speech and language therapies. They should not have to fight simply in order that their children can reach their development milestones, but fight they must.

Years of underinvestment and a lack of political will have led to abject failures in the provision of children's disability services. Even when the Government legislates for timely interventions, such as providing for an assessment of need within six months, the Government either disregards the law or blatantly tries to sidestep it. I stood in the Chamber last year when the HSE was introducing preliminary team assessments to replace comprehensive assessments of need and warned this would be in breach of the Disability Act 2005. Parents such as those in the Gallery today had to go to the High Court, which found this did not comply with the Disability Act and that the Government and the HSE had broken the law. Parents do not want to fight anymore and they should not have to. They should not be here listening to us today but should be able to meet the basic daily needs of their kids. That is not too much to ask.

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