Colm Burke (Fine Gael) | Oireachtas source

I thank the Minister of State. I appreciate that this is a complicated area. It will be a growing problem and I welcome that a group has now been set up within the HSE. I am concerned about it in that in some cases, the parents will end up having to have their son or daughter admitted into full-time care in a community setting. Then one has a huge cost in that as well. I am concerned that numbers are growing. We need to plan very quickly for it and to do so within the next 12 months. I was delighted by the Deputy's visit to the Cope Foundation in Cork and to St. Paul's School, which have been providing superb service in Cork. We have been very fortunate in Cork with all the services we have but there are major challenges and we need to look at them.

Finally, the interesting thing with vehicle registration tax is that, while it is available for someone getting a vehicle who has registered a vehicle in his or her own name, there is no allowance of any description for parents who are providing transport for their child. It is a problem they have as well. In this case, a parent who is driving 15 miles each way, morning and evening, to make sure the child can attend a service gets no allowance of any description and has not for the past 25 or 30 years.