Ms Eilis Hennessy:

The expert advisory group, on whose behalf I speak today, comprised a group of experts from a wide range of disciplines and professions, who came together to offer advice to the Minister for Children and Youth Affairs, Deputy Fitzgerald, on the early years strategy. Toby Wolfe from Start Strong was a member of the group and he and I are available to answer questions.

The early years strategy, which was the focus of advice provided by the expert group, will fit within the overall children and young people's policy framework being developed by the Government. Rather than devise a strategy for young children based in specific service silos, for example, early care and education, the Minister for Children and Youth Affairs announced at the outset that the early years strategy would take a holistic approach to the development of services for children under the age of six. This means that within this strategy there will be commitments to the development of services that relate to children’s health, their education and support for their parents and families.

We commend the Minister, Deputy Fitzgerald, for adopting this approach because young children do not live and develop in silos, so policies and services need to focus on their holistic needs and on integrating services to meet those needs.
Over the course of 18 months the expert advisory group met regularly and with expert input from the Centre for Effective Services came up with a series of 54 recommendations on what should be included within the early years strategy. Every one of these recommendations is grounded within scientific evidence about children's developmental needs and how best to fulfil them. These recommendations, together with the scientific evidence from the Centre for Effective Services, are in the Right from the Start report that has been circulated to committee members.
Time does not permit me to go into each of those recommendations today so I will focus instead on five key points that we believe policymakers need to address over the next five years. In the report we refer to them as five peaks, because we see them as challenges, but as challenges that can be surmounted in the best interests of children. Focusing on these peaks is not to minimise the importance of any of our other recommendations and I hope that members will have an opportunity to read the report in its entirety.
I will give a brief outline of each of those peaks. The first peak is increasing investment in early care and education services, with investment rising incrementally each year from the current 0.4% to achieve the international benchmark of 1% of GDP within ten years. Within the next five years we believe the strategy should ensure investment reaches the OECD average of 0.7% of GDP. The increased investment is necessary to achieve higher quality more accessible and more affordable services, particularly through the training and professional development of those working at all levels of the early care and education system.
Our second peak is the provision of a significantly longer period of paid leave for parents, introduced by each year and incrementally extending paid parental leave at the end of the current period of paid maternity leave. The aim should be within five years to achieve one year's paid parental leave after the birth of each child, and two weeks' paid paternity leave around the birth of a child. This has several important advantages for children and families. A child's first year is a critical time for establishing attachment relationships between children and their parents and for the development of caring roles. These attachment relationships which children develop with their care-givers are very significant for their long-term mental, emotional and social well-being. A year's paid leave would also support breast-feeding beyond six months should the mother choose to extend her time at home beyond the six months of maternity leave. In addition, both paternity leave and paid parental leave would introduce the option for fathers to play a significant role in the care of infants during the important first weeks and months.
Our third peak is strengthening child and family support. In order to do this we believe that what is needed is a dedicated service, led by specialist child and family public health nurses to provide integrated support for parents and children spanning the antenatal period through to the early years. We welcome the establishment of the new Child and Family Agency and we believe that there should be dedicated child and family public health nurses working within the agency but also these nurses should be integrated and co-located with primary care teams, working with GPs, as envisioned in the 2012 task force report. This service should allow for more intensive support for first-time parents who are clearly in need of additional support and for children and families with more complex needs. It must ensure that all children receive the five core visits at home by public health nurses.
Our fourth peak relates to ensuring that all services for children have strong governance, are accountable and provide high quality services. In the past, too many children have been let down by the absence of clear and consistent governance, poor communication and low accountability. The establishment of a Cabinet-level Department of Children and Youth Affairs, is an opportunity to drive significantly higher standards for all our children. We hope that at the end of the strategy's time period of ten years, no child should be in a low-quality early care and education service and that no public money should be allocated to services that fail to achieve quality standards.
We believe that one of the best ways to transform the lives of young children is to enhance and extend quality early childhood care and education services. While Ireland has made significant advances in providing child care and preschool services in recent years it is unfortunately clear that the quality is not consistently high. We welcome the announcement by the Minister, Deputy Fitzgerald, that she will allocate €4.5 million to support implementation of her eight-point preschool quality agenda which includes the recruitment of additional staff for the preschool inspectorate, a mentoring service for preschool services and the provision of training support for staff already in the sector. All of these initiatives are very welcome developments, but the expert advisory group concluded that ensuring high quality remains the foremost policy challenge in early care and education today. As I mentioned earlier, spending on these services in Ireland is significantly below the OECD average, so much more attention and investment is needed.
Once we have achieved a higher standard of care, the fifth peak that we strongly recommend is the extension of the entitlement to free preschool provision so that a free part-time place is available from every child's third birthday until such time as they enter primary school. Depending on the age at which a child begins school, many children should then benefit from about two years' free preschool provision before entering the junior infant primary school class.
We believe that the proposed early years strategy could significantly transform the lives of children in Ireland. However, to achieve this transformation will require leadership and collaboration across Departments, organisations and services. The expert advisory group of which I was the chairperson, has played its part by giving careful consideration to what we believe should be contained within the strategy and by presenting those recommendations to the Minister in the form of our report. Now we need politicians and policymakers such as the committee members to take up the challenge. In the first instance, we urge the Minister for Children and Youth Affairs to include in her early years strategy all the recommendations we have set out in our report. In addition, we believe that if the strategy is to be effective, its implementation will require a high level cross-departmental committee charged with its implementation and with monitoring its progress. We will need politicians to press for such an implementation committee. We believe that the committee should be led by the Minister for Children and Youth Affairs, but should also include all the other Departments whose policies affect the lives of young children. We hope this will include representatives from this committee, and from the Departments of Finance, Public Expenditure and Reform, Education and Skills, Health, Social Protection, Justice and Equality, and Environment, Community and Local Government.
In order to ensure that right from the start all our children have the best possible chance, it will be crucial to have a major statement of political purpose, along with a radical re-orientation of structures, organisations, resources and policy priorities.