Joan Collins (Dublin South Central, United Left) | Oireachtas source

A report commissioned by Tusla and the Irish Research Council is to be published soon by NUI Maynooth. It will show that the early childhood and after school care and education system offers too little too late in a child's life to have any real impact. Since the introduction of the early childhood care and education programme, child poverty has not decreased. It has almost doubled, from 6.3% in 2008 to 11.7% in 2013, the year for which the most recent data are available. A further 17.9% of children are at risk of property. Children are 1.4 times more likely than adults to live in consistent poverty. These are shocking figures to feature under the current Government's watch. Even during a recession, governments have choices. The choices made in one or two other countries in Europe have been to protect the most vulnerable but the Irish Government has failed to do that. Irrespective of the Government's interdepartmental review, these issues must be dealt with very quickly and very seriously.

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