Mr. Noel Kelly:

I will not go over the points so eloquently made by Ms McClorey. When we started planning what we might do in our area, the possibilities were enormous and we could have taken many approaches. We quickly decided that the greatest resource in a child's life is a parent, parents or grandparents. As a State and people, we have ignored that for so long and we have not invested in parents. Any time we have a difficulty we invest in professionals and parachute people in to try to resolve the problem. Our belief is that we must invest in parents appropriately, at the right time and, as Ms McClorey indicated, through the life cycle. The process must be continued as children get older. My parents had very little education but I am here because my mother had a dream that I would do better than she did. I grew up in a rural area and we had nothing. If we can get parents to have ambition and help them in realising that ambition, it will provide the greatest chance for any child. Other significant adults are also good but the parent is key.

I am jumping around because I do not want to make points made by Ms McClorey already. Families' confidence in services has not been discussed today, and unfortunately, families have very little confidence in many services. In many cases that is driven by poor behaviour from professionals and professionals not being willing to meet families in their own home. Somebody mentioned this morning a fear of going into a family's home, which is absolute nonsense. A tiny percentage of families in the country may be involved with serious crime but my staff visit families who are very welcoming. Nevertheless, these families need to know who we are, why we are there, what the business is and how they will be treated. Unfortunately, families in our areas have often been burned when investing in professionals because the professional has moved on. It is an issue for some of our services, particularly social workers, as families referred to social workers need stability but often do not get it. They may be bumped from one person to the next.

That is why we decided on a five year investment in these families. With some of the families it has taken a year to two years to get to the stage where they trust us. They must see that we will be consistent in returning and being fair and friendly. It has taken us generations to get where we are and we will not be able to fix the problem quickly. We should not jump at solutions. Ms McClorey already made the point that there is very little expertise in the area, so it would be unfair to expect the three of us to suddenly formulate a solution. We are coming up with some really good ideas and certain elements work.

However, we have looked at the international scene and there is very little evidence internationally of area-based approaches really being effective.

The next point is long-term investment in families. I have made the point already that many of the things we have done in Ireland have been based on a quick fix. I have been working in this area for 30 years and, unfortunately, in my experience quick fixes do not work. They might work with families with a very high capacity, where a short intervention can work. For most of our families, however, more is required.

Inter-agency working was mentioned. We are at the tip of the iceberg in that regard. Both Ms Marian Quinn and Ms Eleanor McClorey went a little deeper in the asks they made of the agencies. We find that the agencies are with us on this but the real challenge comes in the next phase when we get on to the area-based strategy in our area and when we will put the finger on their shoulders and tell them we want them to do X or Y, to release some of their staff, to stop doing things they are doing already and to do them differently. That will be very challenging. In many professions, the focus is on the professionals rather than the families. We must change the rules of the game. We are here to serve the families. Fair enough, we need good working conditions and we must be treated fairly but, unfortunately, much of our energy and dialogue is about what is happening in the professions rather than what is happening with families.

It would be remiss not to make the point that it is really challenging to work with approximately 20% of our families. Even though our way of working is very different from that of many other agencies, we still find it very challenging to work with those families. These families' lives are quite chaotic and, in some case, they become disempowered. They have nearly been over-serviced by agencies. We carried out an audit in our area when we started, and there are 63 potential services available to children and families. That would be quite confusing for somebody who has a doctorate, so imagine how it feels for parents. They really do not understand the difference between one group and another. We must narrow down the field, and Mr. Mark Candon already made this point. We must get to the stage where everybody must make a serious commitment to a percentage of families and do it well. I question the value of doing a little with lots of families.

We have traditionally worked from a deficit model, so we have put services in when we find problems. We have to work from a strengths model. Both Ms Marian Quinn and Ms Eleanor McClorey have made that point. We should be able to say to every family: "You have got strengths. We are going to find those strengths and work with you on them." By working on those strengths one deals with the deficits. Families have traditionally seen that services only come when they have a problem. That immediately creates a negative mindset. We need to turn that around, so there is a positive mindset. Unfortunately, many of our agencies work on serious, tough problems all the time. That is quite demoralising for staff as well. Staff need to have the space to work on positive things.

To respond to Deputy Troy on the return on investment, when we are finished we have a commitment from James Heckman, who is the world master, to do a cost-benefit analysis of our programme. He has already started to look at the data. Unfortunately, it is quite challenging in Ireland because many of the things that happened in Ireland were never costed. We do not know what it costs if a child goes into care or a social worker is engaged with a family. We can cost things such as education because we know what the cost is per pupil. Some estimates and guesstimates will have to made on that, and perhaps by looking at what is happening in the UK, our nearest neighbour.

We must look at best use of resources. We have to start challenging every organisation working with families to show evidence of how they are using State money to produce best outcomes. At present, people report on numbers. I am a teacher and I have worked in education. People are really concerned with numbers and percentages, but it must go deeper than that. We can get the percentage of children turning up in school to increase, but if the quality of what is happening in school is not good, it does not matter whether they are there or not. It will not change anything. We must change the rules of the game. Instead of looking for statistics and numbers, we must ask people who are getting funding to show how what they are doing is producing outcomes. We know, because of the research we are doing into our work, and we will be able to state that we know that what we have done has produced a certain outcome. Unfortunately, very few people can do that.

I will conclude on that point. There is much detail in what the members have asked us, but the one thing I caution them against is jumping at a solution. The UK jumped at Sure Start. It had success in one or two areas so it rolled it out, but it has failed miserably in many areas. Just because ourselves, young-Ballymun or CDI might find something really exciting, it does not mean it is the answer for everybody. We must be more cautious.