Alan Farrell (Dublin Fingal, Fine Gael) | Oireachtas source

I genuinely admire the Minister of State's ambition as she has set out. With regard to the public participation, a very good number of autistic individuals who engaged with this. I do not have the numbers in front of me but I think it was approximately 40% from what I read earlier this morning. I am encouraged by that but overall numbers were quite low so the Minister of State's call for participation is absolutely timely. I was taken by a couple of the remarks in the published report mentioned by the Minister of State, which is on her Department's website. It states:

Autistic people should be involved in development, monitoring and review of the autism innovation strategy ... [coupled with] ... the opportunity to move towards a rights-based and person-centred approach which supports the Autistic person's will and preferences, and the right to be their Autistic self.

I was quite taken by that because it is of critical importance. What element of the strategy, once we get to the end of this public consultation process on the implementation side, does the Minister of State believe autistic individuals will have the capacity to engage with?

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