Ms Barbara Gerstenberger:

Absolutely. I will respond to the point on the priorities for early childhood development and education. What we can see from the research we have reviewed is that the main point is that the earlier the education starts, the better. It starts with educating parents on how to educate children as well as giving them the opportunity to have their children cared for by skilled and well-trained carers and promoting and supporting development in that area. By the time a child is three or four years old and shows up in preschool, an enormous opportunity already has been lost. The main message is that one must start early if one wants to balance out the differences that exist in terms of knowledge and the finance available to develop and educate very young children.

I was asked about the obstructions to a more equal distribution of resources. It was interesting to hear how positive members were about €1.2 billion in Structural Funds money for Ireland for 2014 to 2020. That is important and I am sure it will be incredibly helpful, but the sum that can be redistributed within the EU for the moment is 1% of EU GDP. Compare that with what is redistributed in the United States, which is a much higher percentage. Whatever we do as long as we limit it to 1% of GDP-----