I thank the Acting Chair and Senator Byrne. I will certainly bring back to the Minister the Senator's request for a meeting. I have no doubt that she will facilitate him in that regard. What jumps out of the script that I just read into the record is the overreliance on the word "wayleaves". It is incumbent on the Department of Education and its planning team to knuckle down and to work with the various stakeholders to take that word off the table. On reading that, the hold-up is not just about the feasibility, it …

I thank the Senator for raising this matter and for being so open in telling me of the diagnosis. Regrettably, before coming here today I did not know the diagnosis and did not know what treatment was being made available.

I thank the Senator for raising this issue today. If the family are watching now or will watch the recording later, I acknowledge their involvement in their son's and brother's care. I have to apologise for the lack of engagement, communication and consultation with the family. I will take more details from the Senator when we finish. If there is a timeline, as has been put on it, and this young man wants to return home, as is his will and preference, that is what the decision support service is all about. That is …

I thank the Senator. I take on board everything she has said. I would welcome working with her and assisting the family because this is an extreme case. When a person has to access residential care, that is extreme at any time. It is ten times more extreme when a person has to leave their jurisdiction in order to access care. It is my prerogative and that of the Government to ensure we provide residential care as close to home as possible so that people can continue their relationships. That is our priority. While …

I thank the Senator for raising this very important issue. As he said, he and the Minister of State, Deputy Butler, have at all times been championing this project. The Senator referred to Touching Hearts and I know Deputy Butler often talks about her niece, Amy, who attends its services. I will be honest and give the Senator some information that will not be in my script. I really struggled to get a response for him today. The response I got is nothing more than a response of no progress, to be honest. It talks ab…

I will work with the Senator and the Minister of State, Deputy Butler, to convene that meeting of all the relevant stakeholders. Accountability is where it is at. I hope CHO 5, under the new leadership of the RHA, prioritises disabilities. For far too long in regions of this country, HSE estates did not prioritise capital development for disabilities. I welcome that I have my own budget of €23 million. It has now come across to the Department. I will liaise with Bernard Gloster to ensure we have a point of contact …

I thank the Deputy for raising the issue, which is one that was raised at the Cabinet subcommittee last Monday. It is getting prioritisation, as the Cabinet subcommittee deals specifically with youth, education and disabilities. That is an issue that was raised and we are addressing it as a priority.

No, Deputy Tóibín is disgraceful.

On the childcare issue, I know the Minister, Deputy O'Gorman, in recent weeks allocated two lots of funding to address the issue in regard to capacity. I will raise the issue that the Deputy has raised with regard to Kilkenny. The issue of ASD places was discussed at the Cabinet subcommittee on Monday. It is a priority that no child will be without a place by September.

Yes.

At what time is the debate to adjourn? I want to allow Senator Clonan to speak to sections 2 and 3.

That is great. I thank the Acting Chairperson. I also thank Senator Clonan for the opportunity to be here for Committee Stage of the Bill. If it was simple, it would have been done many years ago. Is that not the case? We would not be sitting here today. It is important to say that I will not be opposing the Bill by any manner of means. That is the first point. I want to talk to the Senator and the colleagues who have supported him about how this small Bill is a big chance to make a difference. There is a legitimat…

I thank Senator Clonan for his powerful contribution. The Government is fully committed to the delivery of an appropriate and accessible service for children with disabilities and their families and to radical transformation in the disability sector. The first step in that was taking disability out of the Department of Health and bringing it to the Department of equality. We all have health issues but everybody also has rights issues. It took longer than I ever intended for that extraction to take place. It took th…

Yet again, I thank Senator Clonan and all in the House for this Bill this evening. There is no doubt that I cannot do this alone. It has to be a whole-of-government, whole-of-Seanad, and whole-of-Oireachtas approach to address the unmet need within interventions and the assessment of need. Senator Clonan is correct that there is a cost. There is a cost to the training and ensuring that we have the people to do it. It is a whole-of-government approach. A whole-of-systems change and a whole-of-culture change are requ…

I thank the Deputy for raising the question. There is a whole-of-government approach to addressing the assessment of needs, under the stewardship of the Taoiseach. We have already met on the issue and option papers are being developed at this time. Regarding the use of the word "was", funding was secured in 2020 to clear the backlog of assessment of needs at that point; it was cleared completely. In each budget since then, we have secured funding to address the growing waiting list for assessment of needs. We are n…

I thank the Deputy. The Government acknowledges the challenges faced by children and young people with disabilities and their families in accessing essential therapy services in Cavan and Monaghan. It is important to say that along with the Minister, Deputy Humphreys, and Deputies Brendan Smith and Niamh Smyth, I visited Monaghan in the past month and met the families concerned. Lead agencies are experiencing ongoing challenges recruiting across a range of disciplines and grades to fully staff their teams to maximu…

I thank the Deputy for bringing me on to my specialist topic, which is unions. It is important to say with regard to the pay talks concluded last year that while it was very welcome, it has really highlighted the fact that we need the employers, which are the lead agencies of the section 39 organisations, more involved when it comes to pay negotiations and talks. The question is where it is at at this moment in time. There are 1,300-odd section 39 organisations that fall in under disabilities, and they are under th…

No, it has not been launched yet.

There is. I will tell the Deputy in my response.

As there was over €40 million worth of applications into the respite grant application form, which is absolutely massive, they had to spend a lot of time going through it and validating. In fact, the whole purpose of the respite grant is to provide a balance where we have a shortage in our CDNT teams, the local organisations that have the capacity to support through music, art or equine activities and other providers that are able to do the likes of OT or physiotherapy. This is done through various alternative meth…