I thank the Ceann Comhairle. A public meeting was held in Meath the other night regarding the lack of services for children with disabilities. One woman spoke about her ongoing fight for basic services for her child from childhood into adulthood for the past 23 years. Another child was diagnosed with autism on the day of the meeting and the parent wondered if she will she be fighting the same battle and dealing with the same concerns in 20 years' time.

Another matter discussed at the meeting was the number of vacancies in the disability network for Meath and Louth. There has been a vacancy for a paediatric psychiatrist there for more than 14 years. Surely that is not good enough. When will these vacancies be filled.

This issue is not unique to the Deputy’s area; it is right across the country. I was in Cork on Tuesday night with Deputy O’Sullivan. On the psychologist post, I introduced the post of assistant psychologist. This is the first time that we have had a commitment from the HSE on that grade. The news in that regard was announced here three weeks ago. That is the start of the process in addressing the waiting list of people waiting to see psychologists.

On the issue of children progressing from their late teens into adulthood, transition planning is being put in place at present. I am working with the Minister for Education, Deputy Foley, and the Minister of State, Deputy Madigan, to ensure that there will be a proper care pathway in order that those families will be correctly directed all the way through the process. Work in this regard is ongoing.

My question is similar to those of Deputies Guirke and Gino Kenny. Enormous funding has been put in place by the Government to deliver these services but they are not being delivered by the HSE. That is an ongoing difficulty. I thank the Minister of State for her help and support in my constituency, where I am raising matters relating to early intervention and trying to get Ballyowen Meadows Special School to offer to do a second early intervention class. I have, however, not received any responses from the HSE. This is hard to understand. Earlier, I participated in the first meeting of the specially dedicated Joint Committee on Autism. It is great that it has been established, but the HSE needs to respond to our ongoing questions about delivery of services. I am aware of the work that the Minister of State is doing but I use this opportunity to ask her to urge the HSE to step up and to get the area assessments done in my constituency, provide the extra early intervention class and respond to the ongoing questions from special schools when they are looking for help?

I thank the Deputy for raising this issue. I also thank her for giving us the opportunity to discuss the matter last night. Since I met with the Deputy yesterday evening, we have made arrangements to facilitate a meeting at that school at which representatives of the HSE will be present. When schools and the likes of the Rainbow Club in Cork are coming forward and stating that they have the ability and capacity to recruit, we should be working with them. We know that there is a problem with recruitment within the HSE. It is amazing that we do not have that challenge with other organisations. In that context, we have to wonder as to why the HSE is not able to recruit people. I will work with the Deputy on this issue.

I also take this opportunity to wish the new Joint Committee on Autism the very best of luck. It is an extremely important structure to have in place and it will give Members of both Houses a good opportunity to work on this issue. We need to work across Government, and across the various Departments, in a collaborative way in order to arrive at solutions.