Colm Burke (Fine Gael)
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I thank all of the witnesses for the presentations today. This is an important issue. I wish to touch briefly on a few matters. In the past ten to 15 years an amount of money has been spent on the improvement of services. Do the witnesses believe we could have achieved a lot more given what we invested? That is something we must examine because I do not wish to see the same mistakes made over the next 15 years.

My second concern relates to our response to the need for change. It was brought home to me by someone who worked in a hospital in the UK where a need was identified for a clinic to be set up to deal with a particular area. Within three months the clinic was up and running and the system was totally focused on the particular problem that had been identified. The person came back to this country to one of the Dublin hospitals and identified an urgent need to set up a clinic specifically aimed at dealing with teenage pregnancies. The view was that a whole team was required to deal with the issue.

The role of the team was not only to be one of dealing with the person during a pregnancy but also of providing follow up services. The individual in question was astonished to find that no effort was made to implement the proposal. Ten years later, however, the proposal has been accepted by the hospital in question. I cannot understand the reason it took so long for the hospital to adopt it. When a clear need for change is identified why do our services take so long to respond? What do Members of the Oireachtas, who are involved in driving policy, need to do to bring about faster change?

I am involved on the periphery of the child poverty issue through my involvement in a project for approximately 30 children, some of who are as young as ten or 11 years old, who have dropped out of a school. The Christian Brothers are providing €90,000 a year while the Department provides €45,500 per annum for the project. When I raised this issue with officials in a telephone call, they spent more time trying to ascertain what other agency was providing funding for the project that trying to identify ways in which the Department could increase funding for the project. I was astonished by the approach they took. How does one change the mindset of decision makers to ensure we respond to change much faster than has been the case in the past 15 to 20 years?