Gerald Nash (Louth, Labour) | Oireachtas source

I am sharing time with Deputy Ó Ríordáin.

I want to talk about a family in crisis, and what I am about to say will resonate with the Minister of State and builds on remarks made earlier by my party colleague, Deputy Sherlock. This week, I received an email from a struggling, loving and caring mum who had spent most of the past week sitting worriedly by her autistic son's hospital bed. She has every right to be beside herself with worry. Her son is in hospital because of what the woman who knows him best describes as "uncontrollable behaviours". He is an autistic person who has multiple other conditions and mental health problems too. He has been hospitalised on a number of occasions, with the Garda and other authorities often involved. He injured himself in school. He is, at the moment, a danger not just to himself but also, sadly, to family members and others. It is a huge statement that that family had to make to me this week. It was a statement about somebody they love dearly. The family are at breaking point - it is as simple as that - and they also fear for their loved one's safety.

Their son does not need to be in an acute hospital bed any longer. He needs permanent residential support, and in the meantime, he and the family urgently need appropriate respite care. The stress, the sleepless nights and the anxiety are simply unfathomable and intolerable, and I know the Minister of State will agree no family should have to go through this. We are trying to help, but the situation is completely unfathomable. I spoke last night to my good friend Jacinta Walsh, who will be known to many Ministers and others in this House as the mum of a young autistic person. She has been an incredible advocate for autistic people over many years. She tells me that at least three other teenagers bordering adulthood and occupying hospital beds in the north east and north County Dublin are in the same position as that which I described.

I do not want to identify the families. The truth of the matter is that even making the reference I made will not identify the families because this is an all-too-common state of affairs. It could be anybody. These are young people who will at some point soon leave the CDNT system only to arrive at the door of adult services and start an exhausting journey all over again. As it happens, the young person to whom I referred earlier is being supported for an application for a residential service in one county, but by the time that has been processed, there is a good chance he will be in adult services governed by a team in a different county by virtue of his address and the local service arrangements. This illustrates the lack of joined-up thinking, integration or a continuum of care and support for autistic people throughout their lives. This merry-go-round is intolerable. I know the Minister of State will agree it simply cannot go on. It is inhumane and it needs to change. The bureaucracy and the lack of effective responses from the HSE are, I am afraid to say, destroying families.

One long-time advocate told me yesterday that while there is evidence of some improvements in the education system, which can be patchy, the health system is just getting worse. I take no pleasure in saying that as an Opposition Deputy. Nobody in this House has a monopoly on humanity or compassion, and I know the Minister and the Minister of State to be people of sincerity, empathy and care. I am sick and tired and I think they are too. We all are. A family has been sitting around with HSE officials and others, having meetings with well-intentioned and caring staff, only for nothing to come out of that process at the end. There is no solution, no urgency. People have concluded that merely lip service has been paid to the challenges being faced by families and that simply is not good enough.

We need to reflect on what our party leader, Deputy Bacik, said earlier about institutional hostility. That is how it appears to me as a long-standing public representative and, more important, to the families who are caught in the middle of this completely intolerable situation. Something has to give. We need to focus collectively on solutions. I note that the Minister of State will not oppose the motion, but we need progress.

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