Rose Conway Walsh (Sinn Fein) | Oireachtas source

I thank the Minister for coming to the House. The reason I asked him here today is to highlight the need for an autism spectrum disorder, ASD, unit in Castlebar. Castlebar is the county town of Mayo and it is increasingly an issue that children with autism do not have a place to go in the county. While we have St. Patrick's national school and I commend the other ASD units in County Mayo which do very good work, the problem is that there are no ASD units in the county town. All children with autism have a right to a national school education.

To highlight what I am trying to say, I recently learned of a case in which a four year old child who is non-verbal, does not answer to her own name and is incontinent was asked to go to Newport on a bus to access school. That is a round trip of approximately 45 miles. The Minister will know that early intervention is extremely important in the case of children with autism. I want a commitment from him that he will work with the schools in Castlebar. It is not just a matter of adding an ASD unit on to the primary school, but a case of providing the proper resources which may include speech and language or other therapies. There are models of very good practice throughout the country. It is about working with the national schools. We desperately need an ASD unit. One in 60 children have autism and we need to provide those children with an education.