Pat Buckley (Cork East, Sinn Fein) | Oireachtas source

I move:

That Dáil Éireann shall take note of the Report of the Joint Committee on Autism entitled "Report on the Summer Programme 2023", copies of which were laid before Dáil Éireann on 28th November, 2022.

I will be brief because I am sharing time with Senator Carrigy. This is a motion on the Joint Committee on Autism's report on the summer programme for 2023. There were a number of recommendations in the report. I will speak specifically to one and I suppose some Members will take others. The report recommends:

That the Department of education expands the range of professions that may participate in the summer programme to include the following: - Child psychologists

- Speech and Language Therapists

- Occupational Therapists

- Early childcare workers

- Third level students in the final two years of their programme in education, Psychology, Therapy (such as Occupational Therapy and Speech and Language Therapy), Nursing and Medicine.

We are very lucky that the committee is very committed to what it is doing but also because it is very apolitical. We are all on this committee because we care. The idea behind this programme was that we wanted to do things right and improve things. We have listened to many witness statements and the testimony of family members. Even during the very short course of this committee, I have learned a lot about people who have educational needs, challenging needs and so on and so forth. I appeal to the Minister of State to take this report on board and have a look at the recommendations we have come up with. It is not to put pressure on services. We want to improve the services and enhance them. The instant reaction to that is that children and families would have a better time at school but it would also stop the regression when students and families cannot access the summer school.

In my town of Midleton, there is a lady who has been volunteering for 25 or 26 years now. She started off with 20 pupils 25 years ago. She has maybe 250 children now who she does a summer school with every year. There are something like 360 volunteers, who are all kids. My own children did it. It was heartbreaking when they were not allowed volunteer anymore. There is an immense sense of pride in every community and we should have pride in every single person in that community. When people are less advantaged and we have an opportunity to improve their lives, this is what we should do. We are starting at an early age. It is like everything. This will only enhance the services in any town or village in the country. I want to move this report forward. I am conscious of the number of speakers waiting to contribute, so I will hand over to Senator Carrigy.

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