David Norris (Independent)

I wish to share my time with Senator Ross, with the agreement of the House.

I welcome the Minister and agree with many of the points made by Senator Joe O'Toole regarding the effort she has put into this area. However, I believe she is misguided. Autism is now recognised and identified as a condition but it is very complex. One does not speak of autism on its own, but rather an autistic spectrum. That means that each child needs an individual assessment, which is not provided at present.

The Minister is wrong when she refers to fully qualified teachers. While they may be fully qualified as primary school teachers, they do not have the professional, focused expertise that is absolutely necessary in dealing with this situation. The Ó Cuanacháin family visited this House recently. Theirs is a celebrated case, with which I will not deal in great detail now. However, I have read some of the transcripts of the court case and it appears the evidence was unmercifully dragged out. That raised the costs enormously. I know they are not being pursued for those costs but they still have been left with an enormous bill. It seems that the case was an attempt to give a bloody nose to the front-runner to intimidate others and discourage them from taking a similar action.

The young man at the centre of this case was assessed by numerous psychologists but has been denied the treatment that is regarded as appropriate by his parents and by the psychologists, on the say so of civil servants. This is what is behind the statement by Deputy Mary O'Rourke in the Dáil recently. She obviously did not make that statement for partisan motives.

Many Senators spoke on the Disability Bill in this House. We fought a battle to try to ensure that the Act would be rights based. However, despite everything we did, as the Bill was passed, the caveat of "resources allowing" was added. That means there is no right to an individual assessment of needs for children with autism, which is absolutely vital for them.

I refer to an article published in The Irish Times on 15 February. I will not list all of its authors, but it was written by the leading scientists in the field, working in universities in Northern Ireland and the Republic. They begin by stating that they were dismayed, yet no longer surprised, by the justification given by the Minister for depriving so many children with a diagnosis of autism of the only scientifically validated treatment approach to autism, ABA. This contradicts the Minister's comments, which are also contradicted in a letter I received from a senior research scientist. He stated that, as a former research scientist, he can testify that ABA is the only remediation approach for which there is a strong peer reviewed scientific basis for its effectiveness in helping the children in question.

The Minister refers to it as teaching behaviour, but it is not a question of teaching behaviour. Children with autism manifest behavioural problems, such as hand-clapping, head-rocking, self-harming and so on, which means that it is impossible for them to have real access to education before the behavioural problems are addressed. As such, ABA plays a clear role. Having qualified primary teachers does not address the situation. To dismiss the matter as only teaching behaviour is, with the greatest respect to the Minister, incorrect.

The idea that there is a range of methods and that the eclectic approach is appropriate is disturbing. We all know that autistic children do not respond positively to changes in routine. If an eclectic approach is taken, they may find it disturbing and their learning may not be assisted. The article in The Irish Times stated:

The unbiased literature reviews and related research of the task-force undoubtedly found that following the method of applied behaviour analysis was by far superior to other approaches. ABA was also consistently advocated by other bodies which had researched this same issue (eg New York, California, Canada).

The next article is also from The Irish Times. The first paragraph praises the Minister and no one suggests that she has malign intentions, but it is suggested that the children have been failed in a number of ways. At pre-school level, part-time home tuition with a primary teacher is primarily offered. Few of these teachers are available or have the relevant teaching qualifications, leaving it to overwhelmed parents to source it. There is the question of age. Everyone states that it should not be based on age specifically, but on intervention from the point of diagnosis, which must be early. What of the millions spent in fighting court cases?