Robert Troy (Longford-Westmeath, Fianna Fail)
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I will be brief. I apologise that I must slip away after making my contribution but I thank the witnesses for their attendance and for providing members with such a comprehensive consideration. Mr. Toby Wolfe mentioned the importance of the new national early years strategy from the perspective of co-ordinating an approach for early child care. He emphasised the importance of the leading role of early child care in tackling childhood poverty. What level of contribution has his organisation made in this process? Is he confident the national early years strategy will address his concerns? The next speaker spoke on the need to maintain direct child income supports while at the same time enhancing services. In the last budget, there was a direct cut to direct income support with regard to child benefit, while at the same time the enhancement of services did not match the cuts in monetary terms. While the measure can be dressed up as reform, it was a cost-cutting exercise rather then being real reform.

If one reverts to the time of the introduction of the free preschool year, while that was a welcome initiative, perhaps it did not go far enough and there is room to increase it further. I would be interested to hear the witnesses' views in this regard. Overall, much of this boils down to early intervention at the early stages to ensure parents have access to affordable, high quality and accessible child care. This issue must be addressed fundamentally in the future. At the same time, however, one must give consideration to maintaining direct income support to families. A briefing document circulated before this meeting showed the percentage of children in child poverty actually declined between 2004 and 2008, while the level of direct income support increased at the same time. The findings are clear in respect of the effects of a reduction in direct income support. I apologise again for being obliged to leave but thank the witnesses for their attendance and making the presentations.