Michael Fitzmaurice (Roscommon-Galway, Independent) | Oireachtas source

The Tánaiste is correct in saying that some people are able to live with a small bit of help, and that has tended to be what has happened over the last number of years, but what appears to have happened in this case is that the youngster has severe autism and is getting stronger, wrecking the house and breaking up cars. The father is looking after this child on his own and he cannot cater for him.

Let us consider what has happened in the overall context of this. We have fewer spaces for youngsters under adult age and we are now subbing the service out to private operators. From what I can see, having looked at this issue over the past seven or eight months, the private operators want cases but they do not want difficult cases. This child went to a private operator for a weekend but did not last a day. We pay the private operators big money. It seems to be a policy fault that we give private operators big money to try to sort this problem out but it is not working because they want the handy cases not the difficult cases. We must make sure we invest because those youngsters and their parents deserve to have a place. In this case, a single parent is looking after the child and it is wrecking their head. People break up.

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