Katherine Zappone (Dublin South West, Independent) | Oireachtas source

I begin by expressing my great gratitude to be able to sit in this seat. I appreciate the Taoiseach nominating me to be Minister for Children and Youth Affairs. I express gratitude to my constituents in Dublin South-West who elected me what seems like a long time ago now, but I suppose it is just a few short months. I also express my gratitude to all of the speakers, my colleague parliamentarians. I have been listening carefully to what they have said, taken notes and appreciate their comments.

I want to begin with some optimism and hope for the Irish people. I have an ethical obligation to do so, as the new Minister for Children and Youth Affairs, so that we can, in the words of our Sinn Féin colleague, Deputy Martin Kenny, "allow our children to raise our grandchildren", or so that we can find, in the words of Deputy Micheál Martin, "a new direction" for the way of conducting our country's business, or so that all of our children can grow up in a country that supports, in the words of our Taoiseach, their "psychological and emotional well-being", as he has pledged.

One of our collective tasks is to end child poverty. Several colleagues have identified and spoken about this as a critical task for us all to engage in. If the programme for Government in its current form does not have enough on that - only the seeds of it perhaps - I ask them to work with me and other colleagues to do that once and for all. I know a little about attempting to end child poverty. It comes from the ideology that I carry. For want of a better word, I use the word "progressive" too. Some of the people who have informed that thinking may be political theorists such as Jürgen Habermas or radical educators such as Paulo Freire. It has also been informed by the practice of my work as a community educator in Jobstown, west Tallaght and the wider Tallaght area. There, my spouse, Ann Louise, who is still with us in the Visitors Gallery, and I set up one of the first crèches in Jobstown community centre 30 years ago. We invited 12 women from the Jobstown community to come to our home. That is where we started our educational project. We invited them to take the brave step to get back on to the learning path so that eventually they would become either leaders in their own communities or get jobs. If the jobs were not good for them, eventually their children would get good jobs, because their children were well-educated. This is a little of the practice and experience that I pledge to bring to bear on the leadership of my new Ministry.

This is just one of the many collective tasks we must engage in so that we, in 2016, can garner all of our efforts, our imagination and our skilful use of our resources to cherish all of our children equally and provide every child with "an equal start" in life. This is what I called a set of policies I developed when I was a Senator and included identifying the care, education, parental support and preventative and early intervention supports that should be delivered in one place for the child and his or her parents.

I, therefore, begin with that hope and identification of a couple of key collective tasks. However, how will we be effective in the delivery of these and other collective tasks? Several colleagues have referred to the very difficult birth of this minority-led Government. I agree. It is not perfect.

It was far too slow, especially, as many Deputies have identified, as was exemplified by this morning. It is true that we must get better at this. It is true that more trust needs to be built. It is equally true that constructive opposition, radical left opposition, left opposition, Sinn Féin opposition, Labour Party opposition, Green Party opposition, Social Democrats opposition, indeed, all of this opposition, is required to stop us when we are not doing what is required to cherish all of our children equally or to transform opposition to creative proposals that all of us would welcome for our people.

How is it that we will be effective? Each one of us has to ask that question for ourselves. I imagine other Deputies have done so, as have I. How will we use our power? I define power as the ability to get things done. How will Deputies use their power in opposition? I respect their choice, whether party or non-party. The same applies to party, non-party and Independent Deputies in government. Clearly, I have made my choice. I have discerned after much reflection that I will attempt to get things done over here rather than over there. I believe I bring to the table my progressive approach, my practice and experience with the people of Tallaght, along with my practice and experience as a feminist, educator, former chief executive of the National Women's Council of Ireland, human rights advocate and marriage equality leader. Therefore, I know what people power is like and what it means to mobilise the people to get things done and to bring about effective change. Moreover, I know how long it takes to do that. Some of this was brought into this programme for Government. It is not perfect or complete. It is simply a guide for the action plans, strategies and budgets that we will and must create together.

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