Ciara Conway (Waterford, Labour) | Oireachtas source

I thank the witnesses for coming in this morning and sharing with us the kind of work that is taking place in their Departments. The first thing that strikes me in the context of the reading I have done on this area and the evidence we have heard thus far is that everybody is talking about interdepartmental and inter-agency working, but from what I have heard, seen and experienced this is hard to achieve. What is being done to address that? People have alluded to the fact that there are no representatives present from Department of Health but I would equally say why are there no representatives present from local government, the Department of Justice and Equality or the Department of Jobs, Enterprise and Innovation. If the Minister, Deputy Richard Bruton, is serious about getting people back to work, I point out that women account for 50% of the population and they are often engaged in child minding activities. They have a vested interest in the provision of child care services and in the provision of and access to funding in order that people and not only the Department of Social Protection can provide that kind of access and support for people. Local government has a responsibility for the housing provision, the services that are available in communities vis-à-vis libraries and the literacy strategies that we want to implement not only in schools but across communities. What is at issue is that kind of a shake-up. We can equally talk about justice and juvenile justice and prevention programmes that work very well in many communities throughout the country. Some of them now fall under the remit of the Department of Children and Youth Affairs but they, equally, are stakeholders in this approach to tackling and eradicating childhood poverty and providing people with equality of opportunity.

The witness from the Department of Children and Youth affairs spoke about the work and the money that has been focused and funnelled on this area. I would like to know how are the outcomes in this respect being measured. The witness spoke about the large number of people who are involved in youth work but have we any indication that what they are doing is making any difference? I am not saying that in a flippant way. Often people do things with the best will in the world but in this respect I am not sure we are getting the value for money that the children, the families and the State deserve. People are well-intentioned and do good work but sometimes we have to stop and ask if what we are doing is the right thing for this family and for this community. Equally, I would say that the hardest thing about reform and change is to ask somebody to stop doing what he or she is already doing and to do it in a different way. That is what is hard about inter-agency work. In some ways people are being asked to stop doing something or to hand over control. Each of the witnesses' Departments has gained huge experience and learning from the types of initiatives they have in place but, unfortunately, they are often pilot projects. A good quote was made at a hearing of the committee last week, namely, that there have been too many pilots projects and not enough mainstreaming. All the Departments would be guilty of that. How will we get that learning from all the Departments to show outcomes? Will outcomes be measured as opposed to blanket cuts being simply imposed? We know of some youth services that took a great deal of time and effort to devise a programme that would provide the best outcomes for the children in their community rather than simply doing what they had been doing, yet they were levied with the same cuts as everybody else, even though they could show that there was a marked improvement. I would like to know from all the Departments if what they are doing is working, how do we know it is working and if something is not working, how can we change it. That is what we want to try to find out.