Jan O'Sullivan (Limerick City, Labour) | Oireachtas source

We are here, and I think Dr. O’Sullivan said it in her introduction, to talk about what works and what does not. Let us talk about what we can do. We can have that other conversation later. I want to respond to one or two things.

Ms Malone suggested that we should listen to children. The Chair made the point that we had invited one group. How would the witnesses suggest the committee might go out and visit some young people? If anybody has suggestions, he or she might come back to us. I do not mean Dáil na nÓg. I am talking about children who have issues around feeling they will not progress through the system or their parents have not. That is my first suggestion.

The most shocking figure in all of this is again from Ms Malone. One quarter of people in the research on prisoners had not even gone to post-primary education. I apologise to those who have a particular interest in post-primary but I really think early intervention is really crucial. I want to state that. It makes such an enormous difference. My first question is to Ms McGovern. The early years and the school completion programme are both in her Department. I know Ms McGovern is not responsible for these particular areas. However, are there ways in which her Department has information with regard to early intervention in those early years? That is crucially important.

Both Ms Waters and Ms Quinn spoke of team parenting and, again, early intervention. How can we reach as many parents as possible to break intergenerational disadvantage? The witnesses' programmes are successful. Is it about more resources to reach more people? How many, as a percentage of the community, are being reached as opposed to those not being reached?

On the DEIS schools, there is a network of DEIS primary principals in my constituency in Limerick, and I have spoken to all of those as a group and individually.

It appears to me that DEIS is quite successful at primary level. I know that principals of DEIS schools believe the children in their care have benefited hugely from DEIS. Should there be greater concentration on the more disadvantaged areas in DEIS? Are there communities that have been identified as needing significantly more support than is currently available to schools under DEIS? I know from talking to principals in some of the very disadvantaged communities in my constituency that they would love to be able to help families more. They know the families the children come from and they know also that school is the one place where the children are getting extra support. Should DEIS be more targeted than is already the case? Perhaps the witnesses would respond to that question, in particular Dr. O'Sullivan and Ms O'Brien, if she is in a position to answer a policy question.

In response to earlier questions, Dr. O'Sullivan referred to the agencies hiding solutions from each other. Could community education be linked more with primary education, in particular, for children whose parents are in prison? In what way can this committee help such that the agencies are not all operating in silos and there would be cross-referencing that would make a real difference to families? We are probably talking about a relatively small percentage of families in Ireland where there is chronic intergenerational difficulty that needs to be cracked. Perhaps if we could answer those questions we would address Dr. Bisset's issue a little.