James Reilly (Dublin North, Fine Gael) | Oireachtas source

As the Deputy has pointed out, prevention is much better than cure, and I have always been a strong proponent of that. Evidence based interventions are critical and because of constraints on our budget, we want to ensure the money we spend delivers the results we seek. What we are looking for here are better outcomes for children and to address the issue of those who face disadvantage, particularly educationally.

The ABC programme - the second of its type following the programmes implementation platform, PIP - is currently being evaluated under the guidance of an expert advisory group. The evaluation adopts a shared measurement framework across all ABC programme sites. The evaluation will consider the implementation and cost of programmes and, crucially, how the outcomes for children and families in area based childhood areas have changed during the course of the programme. This evaluation will be crucial for indicating the impact of the ABC programme, along with the work of the task group. It will be a key factor in informing considerations regarding the mainstreaming of the learning from the programme.

The key point is that these programmes are used to identify improved ways of delivering a service and getting better outcomes and then mainstreaming the learning so that the improvement is not just in the specific areas where the programme has been tried out, but can be applied across the wider system, thereby addressing all areas.

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