Marcella Corcoran Kennedy (Offaly, Fine Gael) | Oireachtas source

I thank the witnesses for coming in and making their interesting presentations to us. It is helpful in our deliberations in this committee. We have a report to produce and we will be making recommendations based on what we have heard. I thank them accordingly.

Will Deputy O'Sullivan expand a little on the reduced hours? That is news to me. How does that work on a practical level? If the children all go into school at the same time, are some of the children then sent home at a particular time? She might expand on that because it is the first time I have heard about that.

It sounds like the Tobar programme should be mainstreamed. We might think a little more about that in terms of our recommendations. Dr. O'Doherty talked a lot about the children and their ambitions, and Mr. McDonagh did the same. I wonder about reaching the parents to encourage the children. Clearly, they have a considerable influence on their children. In any community, if parents have ambitions for their children, the children will do well. Is there any programme to share with parents how there is potential there and possibilities for the children that the parents themselves may never have had? Is that a direction the witnesses would consider? Maybe it is happening somewhere. Is it something that we could be looking at as well?

I deal a lot with young Traveller families. I notice that they are young. There is nothing unusual in that to my age group. I was married at 25. By then, some of my school friends were married for five years and had children. They got married at 19 and 20. Mr. McDonagh touched on culture. Is that shifting in the Traveller community now, although a little slower than it did in the settled community? For example, it would be unusual for my children's generation to get married at the age I did. They are marrying later. Is there anything there that we need to be looking at, for instance, in terms of encouraging people to remain in education longer? It struck me, as Mr. McDonagh was talking, as something that may be worth looking at as well.