Ms Heydi Foster-Breslin:

Assessments and early interventions are essential for children, but the HSE services, already under serious pressure, have been greatly affected by the impact of Covid-19. The public health nurses have been taken away from working with children to undertake Covid-related tasks during the pandemic. Even in normal times, these nurses were covering everything, including care of older people. Specialised nurses should be visiting babies and families. A huge backlog exists of children who have not been seen for their development checks. This can have a major impact on the stress levels of parents. Investing early in children, including the provision of more funding for home visiting and early years services, has a great impact, as does funding for preventative and intervention services for children and families.

I do not recall which of my colleagues mentioned the demonstration project rolled out to early years services and primary schools. Speech and language and occupational therapies were allocated for services and work with staff and children to support areas of children's development. The project was successful and demonstrated the benefits of early intervention. It must be rolled out nationally in communities with high levels of child poverty. We also need core funding. As not-for-profit, grassroots organisations, we are at the heart of these communities. We are ready on the ground and must be funded properly because our early years staff need to be properly trained and funded.