Alan Kelly (Tipperary North, Labour)

I know the Minister for children is a very decent person. There are tens of thousands of families affected by what we are talking about, my own included. I deal with this issue every day. In my clinic recently, nine out of 17 appointments concerned issues experienced by people with autism.

I have probably been involved the longest with Cara Darmody and with her father and mother in fighting for their two sons. I brought them here two and a half years ago. I know how determined Cara is and how determined the family are.

I will say quite openly that I am so uncomfortable about the fact that it has gotten to the stage where a 14-year-old is sleeping outside tonight and tomorrow night. That needs Government intervention tonight. We, as a country, cannot have a scenario where a 14-year-old who has been fighting - in fairness, this is not today or yesterday - for two and a half years is sleeping outside the national Parliament because we are in a crisis and she, and many of the rest of us, cannot see a way out. It is a national scandal. We cannot allow it to happen. The Minister is a very decent person, I absolutely know that, but someone from the Government - the Taoiseach or somebody - has to go out there. It will be a stain on all of us if something is not done. A 14-year-old has to sleep outside the national Parliament in order for us to put in place crisis measures to deal with this issue.

I received figures from the HSE in relation to this issue. I just want to say this out straight. I often ask questions of the HSE and it is not always so forthright. This is a cry for help from the HSE. The HSE admits the list will go to 25,000 within another eight months. This is not sustainable for all the families out there who are fighting. The HSE also tells us it cannot provide the figures on how much longer than six months families have been waiting. All of us in this House know that it goes on for years. Not alone does it go on for years and years but then afterwards when one gets a service statement, it will take another number of years. It takes years to get an AON, it takes years to get a statement of service and then it takes years to get occupational therapy, speech and language therapy and everything else. It takes a block of years to get the AON, a block of years to get the service statement, and a block of years, if at all, to get the therapies. That is reality. Also, for families who move in and out of the system to the private system, having the best of intentions, and try to jump back into the public system, there are complications there.

I have a situation where somebody who is well known to many of us in this House has verified something which I have always thought, where when one's child seeks to be dealt with by CAMHS, it often looks for an assessment of need to rule out autism. I am beginning to wonder if that is just to keep the numbers down in CAMHS. I am fairly convinced it is a real issue.

Many people speak about this issue but do not actually come into this House to look at solutions when they are in opposition. I will change that and talk about where we have to go as regards solutions. We all know we need more people working in this area. That is the ultimate issue. We all know the former Minister of State, Anne Rabbitte, stood in this House two years ago responding to a Labour Party Private Members' motion and made commitments that, no disrespect to her, have not been honoured. We need to bring in more people who are working in the private sector. We also need to upskill a large number of people who are in other disciplines in order that they are able to cross-work in this area. That is the quickest way in which we will deal with this issue. We also need to bring in more people from outside this jurisdiction in order to deal with this.

We need to ensure we are not only training more people but that we are dealing with pay parity issues. Many people are working in other organisations, privately, etc., because of the pay parity issues with working in the HSE. I know people who want to work in the HSE and who want to work in this sector but they have mouths to feed. The pay parity issue, which has gone on for years, is a real one. They are the four different components which I believe will go a long way to helping with this issue.

I will conclude by repeating that I am not comfortable that we, as a State or as a Parliament, are allowing a 14-year-old child, who I totally and utterly respect and whose family I have worked with for many years and who I brought here initially a number of years ago, to sleep outside our Parliament tonight because she is so desperate to see this issue dealt with. It is the lowest thing I have seen in my 17 to 18 years in these buildings.

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