Mr. Mark Candon:

Responding to the points of the Vice Chairman, it is an issue of massive frustration for many of us plodders involved in service delivery, or what Lipsky called street-level bureaucrats. If I have a child who must attend a psychologist or a psychiatrist and the child does not like the office, we are between a rock and hard place. The mountain will not go to Mohammed and Mohammed has no intention of going back to the mountain. When I talk about a tsar and knocking heads together, it is to get by this stuff and get it organised. It is not that some people, within their own groups, agencies and professions, do not do great work. We have talked for years about inter-agency work and linking up. This goes back to social inclusion and Departments working together. There were interdepartmental committees about social inclusion and we are waiting for it to filter down to us. These remain the frustrations and that is where we need to draw it together. This must involve the Departments of Justice and Equality, Education and Skills, Children and Youth Affairs and Social Protection. There must be someone above all of that. In her presentation, Ms Marion Quinn referred to the nested model of family, the community and the child. They must also be a nested model of services. The first level is the school or the preschool, the next is the area within which they work, and there are other subsequent levels.

Deputy Aodhán Ó Ríordáin referred to evidence-based policies, which I love, but a good researcher is someone who maintains a healthy scepticism about findings. One can have projects that may make certain findings but one really needs ten or 15 projects over time in different places. Deputy Aodhán Ó Ríordáin referred to Dr. Tommy MacKay, our dear friend in West Dunbartonshire whom I would love to have a pint with, and 65,000 kids, all of whom read at nine years and six months as tested through Neale analysis. As a teacher, I would love to see how 65,000 kids can be tested using Neale analysis. It takes some time. Yesterday afternoon, I was at a homework club with a very bright child of ten or 11 years who is highly dyslexic. How will he end up reading at the level of nine years and six months when tested using Neale analysis? The Hart-Risley study is great, but let us look at the methodology and how it was done. We know things and we learn things, but let us be careful, because there is enough expertise in this country and among our own people to answer many of the questions.

The most wonderful thing was said at this meeting, which is that families will engage with services if they meet their needs and are delivered respectfully. We can bring a horse to water but we cannot make it drink. I referred to the Eithne Kennedy's Write to Read project, whose key secret is ongoing engagement. Gráinne comes in every second week so I must have my homework done for her, as the kids must have their homework done for me. That is the ongoing professional development and support. At the strategic working level, that is what keeps it sustained. Without one person, such as tsar I am talking about, saying that this is how we will do business, I do not see how we can make services deal respectfully with families. How long will it take to teach them?

Looking at the research in the educational field over decades, going back to the war on poverty, James Coleman did a major study and concluded that schools will not make a difference. For 40 years, there was research on school improvement and school effectiveness showing that schools make 8-15% of the difference. This is what Coleman said. We must change the rules of the game. We must start with a focus on the child. I am a wonderful person, if I say so. Next September or October, I must look at how I play the game to retain people or do this or do that, with the best will in the world. Policy-makers and legislators need to think at that level. How would we allow the chief superintendent in Store Street to work in a certain way so that his backside is covered? I need to know my back is covered because someone here is saying we should get together and work together. Without that, we are very limited in the outcomes we can truly achieve.

After 25 years teaching, at the start of which I was sent home because I wore an earring, and having started my teaching career at 15 or 16 with the old fella in Christ the King, Cabra, I have been looking at this all my life and seeing how different bits work together.

Regarding the trade of the Vice Chairman, which is social work, I would love to see support for Mountjoy Square, where there is a throughput of social workers. There is a caseload that cannot be handled and it is a finger-in-the-dam situation. I do not know if that makes sense. If we can draw these things together, we can potentially go forward.