Dr. Naomi Feely:

I wanted to come in on the issue of the DEIS-type model for early years. I think we are all in agreement that we can break the cycle of child poverty if we invest in early years but the fact is that for some children, early childhood is very challenging for their families and there is a specific need to target resources towards supporting those children and their families to have access to early childhood services. We see a number of issues. When the Department was developing the equal-participation model, it focused on issues of access and participation. We certainly know from our members, as Ms Ahern spoke about, that for some Traveller families, it is really difficult to access that service because there are barriers around IT literacy and getting online to access information about where a childcare place is.

Taking another look at that, there is also the issue of participation. When a Traveller child does get into a service, there is the question as to what it looks like for them and what their sense of belonging is. What we would like to see in the new equal-participation model is consideration of the needs of certain groups, such as Traveller and Roma families, and I know the Department intends to focus on that group as a target group. If we go back to the data and look at the CSO figures, we know that children living in one-parent families, in particular, have specific challenges relating to poverty, whereby there are higher rates of poverty for those children. At the EU level, therefore, we see not only a close weighting of access to early childhood education and care but also a consideration of how that can unlock parental employment or engagement in education and training. That is a key issue.

We would like the model to look at those wraparound services. Ms Ahern spoke about the work undertaken in some of our members' organisations, where they provide not only a childcare service but also additional supports to parents, which other witnesses before the committee spoke about earlier. It is about supporting those parents through challenging circumstances, such as poor parental mental health, addiction issues and so on, and recognising not just this support for the individual child participating in the service but also what the family needs. I was struck by something one of the participants at our End Child Poverty week, which is one our events, said. You do not age out of poverty but the early years are the time to start trying to break that cycle.

I attended the same conference as Ms Byrne a few weeks ago, when we looked at the Pobal deprivation maps. There are a lot of data there that can really help us understand where the pockets of disadvantage are. I agree we do not see poverty just in those areas, and we know from the DEIS programme at primary and secondary school level that not all experiences of disadvantage are focused in those DEIS schools. There is considerable disadvantage in non-DEIS schools as well, and it is about how we tackle that issue. It is critical, as the Government commits to investing in the equal participation model, that we do not look at it just from a spatial or geographical level but also in regard to what the gaps are or what aspects we have not considered.

As a starting point, it is critical we come back to that children’s rights approach and look at what is needed for children. We will see it is about high-quality services and investing in workers who have a strong relationship with those children. Especially for children experiencing poverty and disadvantage, that will be critical.