Frank Feighan (Fine Gael)

I welcome the Minister of State to the House and thank him for a detailed and informative speech.

Staff recruitment and retention is a major difficulty facing the health boards in many areas, including services for people with autism. I spoke here less than two months ago about the recruitment of a senior orthodontist in County Roscommon. While I accept that the Western Health Board advertised this position, there was nobody to take it up. This is a serious problem in rural areas such as Roscommon. I do not know the answer, but it is a problem which must be addressed sooner rather than later. I understand there was funding for the post but, unfortunately, at this stage the health board does not have a senior orthodontist who will deal with children with special needs.

While I acknowledge a lot has been done, much remains to be achieved. I do accept that progress can best be achieved through partnership at national, regional and local level.

According to the Task Force Report on autism of November 2001, "The litmus test for the quality of any society is the way it treats its potentially most vulnerable members." Cutbacks will undermine the aspirations of any Government. The Minister of State may call them adjustments, but they are cutbacks. It is indicative of the way we are failing this group that a number of those vulnerable members of our society and their carers and parents had to make the journey to the gates of the Dáil yesterday in an attempt to have their case heard. We heard them talk of the shortfalls in funding and the cutbacks experienced this year. While we accept progress was made, we hear their representatives talk of reverses and of returning to the position of a number of years ago, rather than making progress. This reversal is not isolated; it is the same story nationwide. In county Roscommon, a particular project in this area had funding of €50,000 for a service in Roscommon town in 2002, but this year there is no funding. We cannot carry on the same service by giving funding one year and then withdrawing it the next.

There is also the situation of a person requiring specialist intensive care. As the Minister of State will be aware, such care is costly and staff intensive, but it has to be done. With the funding being siphoned from other necessary, if not so acute, areas, a person who wants a quality service must pay for it. People no longer accept that those with a disability should just be minded.

In Roscommon there is also no diagnostic team. Early diagnosis is an essential element in the care and treatment of disability. It is a recurring theme in these services that there is great difficulty – if not impossibility – in acquiring the necessary specialists such as speech therapists, psychologists, physiotherapists and occupational therapists. I will refer to the urgent need to improve our training provisions for these later.