Dan Boyle (Green Party)

My background, both professionally and voluntarily, is in community youth work and I disagree with little in the intent and aspirations of the motion. Part of my voluntary career was spent with the National Youth Council of Ireland, which is part of the child poverty coalition, and I am glad a number of my former colleagues are present to monitor the debate. No Member is uncommitted to the notion of reducing and ending child poverty in our society. It must also be accepted that considerable improvements have been made through the provision of additional resources in recent years. There should be legitimate political debate about whether all the resources have been used effectively. We have entered a new era in the current economic downturn in which existing resources and the availability of future resources are very much in question. As decisions are made, legitimate political debate needs to take place regarding whether their effect is being felt in a just and proper manner, particularly by children, who need the most protection and care in their development.

I have fears that when making across-the-board cuts, decisions are made that have a disproportionate effect on the provision of children's services. We need to accept that even before the economic downturn of 2008 and its exacerbating effects as we are feeling them now and as they are likely to develop in the year ahead, there existed an unacceptable level of child poverty in this country, much of it in the families of the working poor. Now that we have increasing unemployment, that problem is likely to deteriorate. There is an onus on Government to put in place programmes that meet the effect of such poverty.

There are legitimate political questions as to how that can be done and whether it is being done. Legitimate questions are being asked as to the effects of decisions made in recent days. As a member of a party in Government I also would like to know the effects of such decisions. Across the board decisions are indiscriminate in their effects and need to be targeted. As fewer resources are available, how do we ensure those resources are used to best effect? We can all wish that things were different and that all the problems could be solved at once. However, in reality we are lacking resources and those resources in sufficient quantities are unlikely to be available for a considerable time. We need to ask how that can be done in the fairest way.

I had a discussion today with a chief executive of a youth organisation. He put to me bluntly the effect of an across-the-board cut in his organisation. He made proposals as to how the same monetary value could be achieved by making cuts within the system that would not affect face-to-face services. The real challenge for the Government and the Office of the Minister for Children and Youth Affairs is to ensure the last area affected is the area of face-to-face services, especially in youth work. We are entering a period with which those of my generation who grew up in the 1980s will be all too familiar. When I started working as a paid professional youth worker, the resources provided by the Government to pay my wage, such as it was, through what was then an AnCo team workers' scheme, was I believe £40 per week. I do not want to see us going back to that. Tremendous advances have been made in the resources we are putting into the services. Following that incremental growth over the past ten years the sudden jolt of a large decrease could have a disproportionate effect on the services. Unless we are prepared to acknowledge and address that, there are dangers.

It may be ironic to mention this. Prior to getting involved in youth work on a large scale, IDA Ireland had a campaign about the viability of Ireland as a destination for investors. It encouraged people to come to Ireland with the tag line: "We are the young Europeans." At the time the average age of Irish people was approximately 25. I believe it has now increased to approximately 35. However, in European terms we are still a very young country. Ireland is one of only two European countries that is able to replace its population through its birth rate. That indicates we have a large number of young people and will continue to do so. How we cater for their education, health and social justice is the mark of any Government.

Despite what was said about not mentioning the term "child poverty" within the programme for Government, as a negotiator of that document, I am pleased from my party's point of view with what we included because they were included on the basis of addressing issues of child poverty, especially increasing the provision of medical cards for children under six. In the current climate and availability of resources, I must accept how, when and even if those issues will be addressed are a challenge. However, I still believe it is an important social goal. As Senator Corrigan has said, if we do not have access to primary health care services for the very young in our society, we are creating a series of false economies that whoever subsequently ends up in government will need to address by allocating more unnecessary resources.

I hope this debate is conducted in those terms. I accept we have a difficulty in terms of relative, consistent, persistent and even absolute child poverty. How we address it depends not so much on decrying its existence as on acknowledging that the resources available to address it in the first instance are not what they were and that those resources need to be used as cost effectively as possible. As someone who has worked voluntarily and professionally in the area, I am confident that can be done. However, it will not be done without a period of readjustment. Much of that needs to happen not only within the voluntary sector but also most markedly in the mindset of the political system and how resources are originally made available through offices such as the Office of the Minister for Children and Youth Affairs. It is important that such an office exists. To show its effectiveness, as with all areas of government, it is not a case of doing it when the resources are freely available and Governments can be most flaithiúlach with public money. The real test of any Government is to show how we can tackle issues such as this when resources are least.