The father of four autistic children who were taken into State care has called for a "root and branch" review of health services for children with disabilities.
Pádraig O'Hara also called on the Government to scrap the Disability Bill which, he said, was deeply flawed and needed to be radically changed if it was to have any positive effect on the lives of people with disabilities.
"We want a review of how health boards deal with families of children with disabilities. There needs to be root and branch reform of services that aren't being delivered properly. It needs an independent person to examine why so little funding is getting to families," Mr O'Hara said yesterday.
"It can cost up to €500,000 to place an adult in an institution. Yet that could be avoided if therapies and education were available for children with autism at a cost of around €60,000 a year for three to four years," he said.
Mr and Ms O'Hara were reunited with their children late on Friday after a judge dismissed an interim care order which had been taken out by the Health Service Executive (North Eastern Area) a week previously.
Fionn (16), who is dyslexic, Oisín (13) and Blaine (9), who have autism, were staying in a guesthouse in Drogheda. Seadna (5) and Cionnaola (4), who are also autistic, were staying at a residential unit.
The couple from Kells, Co Meath, say they have been forced to pay for private basic services, such as occupational and speech and language therapy, because of the lack of State services.
The Irish Autism Alliance, meanwhile, will seek a meeting with the executive this week regarding the treatment of the family.
It said yesterday it was aware of dozens of other situations where families were desperately trying to secure appropriate education or health services for children with autism without an adequate response from the State.
Marc de Salvo of the Irish Autism Alliance said the group hoped its meeting with the HSE would be constructive and that support services could be delivered to the family as quickly as possible.
"We've offered to act as advocates for parents in relation to bringing this situation to a successful conclusion. We want to see how we can avoid something like this ever happening again," he said.
"The events of the last week were very high profile and as an organisation we are aware of many, many situations around the country where services are simply not getting to parents and their children, whether that's speech therapy or occupational therapy. We're calling on health authorities to meet with us to see how we can best communicate with them and hopefully increase the level of services."
The HSE has declined to comment on the O'Hara case and a spokesperson was yesterday unavailable for comment.
Official figures suggest that one in 166 children goes on to develop an autistic spectrum disorder, a 10-fold increase since the figures were first recorded in the mid-1990s.
Independent TD Finian McGrath, who is the father of a disabled child, said he will raise the issue in the Dáil.
