Mr. Stuart Duffin:

With regard to the services, if one is not engaged in activation one is on €20 per day. The services exist if one wants to engage, but if one does not there are harsh penalties. I say this as a note of caution because we always talk about the Scandinavian model.

Investment does not necessarily mean more money; it means re-engineering budgets. That is an important concept that we need to get across. This is why we are really campaigning and focusing on outcome-based budgets across Government agencies and Departments. If there is a child poverty outcome-based budget across education, health, etc. – the sharing budget – outcomes will be achieved. This is because of the whole-of-government approach. This is one of the key points on which we need to move forward in terms of having a child-centred budget that addresses child poverty.

One of the key points on the new agency is that the family resource centres are the gateway services. They comprise the services that should be considered in terms of people feeling free and easy in availing of a range of supports.

Those supports should not be delivered on the deficit model but on an asset-based model, in terms of assessing what assets the community and the individuals have and moving forward on the basis of that positive approach rather than on a negative, deficit-based one. It is good and appropriate that we have that family resource centre, FRC, model but it needs to be worked on and developed so that it is seen as a resource in terms of communities.

In terms of examining best practice, there are a number of models around Europe where they are using virtual learning sets so that people can post best practice in particular areas. That is a service that an area-based budget could deliver on because it is about sharing practice and looking at what is working well in places like Dublin or Limerick, for example. That would be relatively easy to put in place.

We also need to look at outcome agreements. Any service, agency or government agency that is delivering in terms of child poverty needs to have an outcome agreement or a contract set up so that the pathway going forward is clear. We are very much focused on evidence-based approaches. I attended the Geary summer school two years ago where, during the course of that conference, Mr. Chris Whelan said that we need to believe what we see, which is an important issue. It is possible to make scientific assessments of poverty but we must also look around us, see what we see, believe it and respond to it.

Finally, there is a real opportunity to see child care as a work force development initiative in terms of creating jobs in child care with a professional pathway. Child care should be part and parcel of economic policy and not just of social policy. Integrating child care into work force development initiatives would create jobs locally and would provide real services.