When Melanie* travelled abroad in July for a family holiday to Mallorca, Spain, with her six-year-old son Luke*, she found Dublin Airport stressful.

Originally from Slovakia, Melanie, who works in finance, and her Irish-born husband have younger children – two-year-old twins – but Luke has profound autism and finds airports challenging.

“You’re always worried there will be delays. You’re worried the plane could be sitting on the tarmacadam for three hours. If I have to keep him on a plane for five hours, he will probably walk off the plane. It’s too much,” she says.

Luke has limited verbal skills and, in common with many autistic children, a tendency to abscond. “He runs away if he feels like it. One year when we were abroad we had to move chairs and luggage to block the door. The same goes for balconies.”

Dining on holidays is difficult. “He’s very limited with his diet. He will eat chips or bologna sauce but the one I make because that’s the one he knows,” Melanie says.

“So there’s anxiety around food because the food needs to be always the same. If it’s too much for him, he will lie down on the floor. It doesn’t matter where you are, he will just lie down. For us, it’s much easier to stay in Ireland.”

For some families with autistic children, going on a break can feel harder than being at home. Lack of predictability, absence of routine and the anxieties and stress that may come with meltdowns in public settings can result in families avoiding holidays altogether.

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But as awareness has improved – it’s estimated one in 20 children in school today has an autism diagnosis – more hotels are retraining staff an