Ms Tanya Ward:

I thank the Senator for her question. The local child poverty development plan has come from talking to our members about what kind of issues are being experienced on the ground, as the Senator said. A good example of that is the Childhood Development Initiative, CDI, in Tallaght, which has done a needs assessment regarding children living in poverty. It looked at what is happening for children in our location. Several things emerged from that undertaking. Basically, it was discovered that people living in Tallaght had what was almost the biggest gap in educational attainment in the country. That was one of the points that jumped out from the findings. It was also found, however, that while there were many green spaces for children, all the playgrounds and play areas were in bad condition. The schools in the area said they just did not have enough resources in respect of technology, schoolbooks, etc. It can be imagined, then, if we had this national local approach to addressing child poverty, that here is an area where the local stakeholders have already done an analysis of what the needs are. If they put a plan together and the Government provided funding to address some of those issues, then we can imagine some of the change that would bring about. Adopting this approach in future, and perhaps piloting it in some areas to see what the impacts would be and how much it would cost if it is going to be employed, could make a major difference.

Turning to the issue of individualisation, possibly what is at the heart of this matter is the lack of focus on child poverty and the poverty of the parents. I say that because these systems are all developed by different Departments with their own objectives and goals. If they came together with a different goal, however, the systems might be developed in a different way. We already heard from Ms Smith about how important third-level and further education is. She knows the difference that would make to her child’s life, but she has faced all these challenges and difficulties in pursuing her goal. The data already tell us this. If Professor Mary Daly, who studied at Oxford University, was presenting here before the committee, she would tell the members that the single most effective measure to lift children out of poverty is actually the provision of quality childcare and education and training opportunities to the mother. If that is what the data are telling us, then what is it not happening? There should be no barriers in this regard. If someone like Ms Smith wants to get going on her career, then she needs supports such as childcare, grants and flexibility. She should not have any of those challenges to deal with. Therefore, we must re-examine the overarching policy that is guiding some of these systems and the delivery in that context, and a child poverty frame is the best way to do that