Ms Tanya Ward:

It is a long-term investment. It is very welcome that this Government maintained the unit. The unit has excellent expertise. It has people I would have hand-picked myself to lead the work. It would be welcome to have them before the committee to talk about what they have been doing. One of the things they have been doing is providing an evidence base to other Departments about what the problem is and what measures might work. They have also brought consortiums of different practitioners and decision-makers together to look at how to address child poverty issues. One of the things I did not anticipate with the establishment of the unit was how the national discussion on poverty, including child poverty, changed. We just thought it was a good idea that we had seen happen in other countries and had resulted in change. Suddenly, once the Department of the Taoiseach named it as a key issue, people were having conferences and discussions about child poverty throughout the country that we had never seen before. That in itself is very positive because it promotes awareness of how this is something that we have to address together nationally.