Dr. Naomi Feely:

I thank the Cathaoirleach. We welcome the opportunity to be here today to discuss with the committee the priority issues for the Children's Rights Alliance. Before I begin, I do want to pass on the sincere apologies of our CEO, who is delayed this morning. She may be in a position to make it a little later, but she gives her sincere apologies.

The Children's Rights Alliance is a national organisation, uniting 160 members throughout Ireland. We work together to make Ireland one of the best places in the world to be a child. We change the lives of all children by making sure their rights are respected and protected in our laws, policies and services. We are not only concerned with analysing the issues and problems that may be facing children and young people in Ireland today but also strongly want to offer solutions, particularly in terms of policy and legislative change.

This morning we are going to look at four or five key issues that we are working on at the Children's Rights Alliance. I am going to deal with two of them first before passing on to my colleague. The first issue which we have been very concerned with over the past number of years is the issue of early childhood care and education. I know the committee has had strong engagement with the Minister last week on this issue, but what we have seen over the past three budgets is a €1 billion investment in this area. This is critical, both in terms of breaking the cycle of child poverty and investing in this sector to ensure that children have access to strong quality services.

Among the areas of investment over the past two budgets, the Government has launched a new programme called Equal Start. This is a specific funding model which seeks to tackle the issue of disadvantage in early childhood education and care settings. It provides specific funding for services which deal with both disadvantage at the local level within communities and families attending services. For the Children's Rights Alliance, it is really critical that the forthcoming budget and subsequent budgets invest significant funding in this funding model to ensure that early childhood education and care can be delivered to all children in Ireland and that it gives all children the best start in life.

The other issue we are concerned with in the area of early childhood education and care is moving towards a public model of childcare. We have seen a welcome commitment in the programme for Government to move to looking at how we can advance towards this model but also reducing the cost of childcare for parents to €200 per month. We think that will be critical. However, there will need to be a series of steps taken to deliver on this. We would like to see a public model of childcare to take a children's rights approach, very much drawing on the recommendation from the UN Committee on the Rights of the Child, ensuring that children have access to quality services. A key aspect of this is ensuring the workforce are of high quality and receive the pay and recognition they deserve for their work.

The final issue I am going to speak on before handing over to my colleague, Ms Corbett, is the issue of child poverty. Many members will be aware that we launched last week the latest edition of our Child Poverty Monitor. At the Children's Rights Alliance, what is of key concern to us is that we tackle the issue of child poverty, taking a three-pillar integrated approach. First, we should ensure families have access to an adequate income and, second, that they can get access to quality services. This includes providing responses right across a range of service areas such as, as I mentioned previously, early childhood education and care and taking steps in education to invest in specific measures to tackle poverty and disadvantage. We also know it is critical that we invest in services such as a dedicated public health nurse service for children and families.

The other issue that we are extremely concerned about and will be at the forefront of many members’ minds after listening to the media commentary on the issue of the housing crisis is the fact there are 4,775 children living in emergency accommodation. The issue that perhaps we do not see or hear enough about is overcrowding. For many families, while they may enter homeless accommodation, others will return to their family home and they may be in situations of overcrowding. We looked specifically at this issue because it was raised by our members and colleagues working in social work in Tusla, and what we found is that while overcrowding in Ireland was low compared with the European average, when we look at children living in households that are income poor, the rate was 22% in 2024. That is a doubling of what the rate was in 2021 when it was just 11%. We do not know the consequences overcrowding is having on children and their families, but of key concern is the issue of child protection. I will pass over now to my colleague, Dr. Corbett.