Dáil debates

Wednesday, 24 May 2023

Access to Autism and Disability Assessments and Supports: Motion [Private Members]

 

10:42 am

Photo of Rose Conway-WalshRose Conway-Walsh (Mayo, Sinn Fein) | Oireachtas source

I thank the Labour Party for tabling this motion but I really despair. I was in the Seanad for four years and I have been here for two years. Year after year we table motions and talk and talk about things. Like many families in this country, I have a relative and family member who is autistic. He is 23 and I cannot see the changes that are made. I talk daily to parents of autistic children, including adult children, and they experience the same thing we experienced 23 years ago. Things do not change. While there is lots of talk and it is said there is lots of money there, the system works against people all the time. Whether the assessment delays, the multi-year waiting lists for therapies, the lack of access to education supports and to appropriate school places, it is all the same and it is all impacting on families.

Either successive governments are not capable of providing supports and services for children and adults with autism, or they are. It seems they are not. There is no joined-up thinking. When it comes to, say, financial supports, crazy questions are asked. Applicants are asked if their son will still be autistic in 16 years' time. As late as yesterday, I saw a form the doctor had to fill out to predict whether the child would be autistic in 18 years' time. It is crazy. Do these people not know what parents have to go through? Getting the diagnosis is where the battle starts. There is a battle to get the diagnosis and then a battle all the way through.

It has to stop on our watch. It cannot go on any longer that parents and families are being put through what they are being put through just because their child is neurodiverse, has additional needs or has needs that need to be met. It is a shame on us that we have not done that and it is a shame on successive governments.

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