Feargal Quinn (Independent)

I welcome the Minister. Like many Senators, I was delighted when I heard that she was to be appointed to this portfolio. Senator Barrett reminded me that we were getting two for the price of one, as I did not know that the Minister's husband was a professor of paediatrics at Trinity College.

I have been educated by this debate and the Minister, but I was also educated at this morning's meeting of the Joint Committee on Jobs, Social Protection and Education, which was attended by the Ombudsman for Children, Ms Emily Logan. She reminded us of the work she is doing and the work that still needs to be done. Her main criticism was of the frequency with which bureaucracy became a factor in the work to which she and the Minister are committed.

Senator Henry referred to the missing children hotline. We are one of the few countries that has not yet put it into operation. The number is 116-000 and funding has been available since last October. The hotline is used in the North and 16 other European countries and I would love to see it in operation in Ireland. I am not sure why it is not, but I gather that it is not a difficult technology to implement.

The Minister educated me on the issue of obesity, as I had no idea. The Minister stated that 25% of three year olds were obese. Some of the descriptions she gave were frightening and some of the ideas on how to tackle this issue were interesting.

In the US, families are not given a children's allowance, but food stamps. These cannot be used for alcohol or tobacco. There are moves towards changing our system, but could we consider the approach of the United States? We come across instances of people who abuse the children's allowance. We might be able to do something about that problem and create a real benefit.

A number of Senators will discuss early intervention and the Minister referred to investing now to save money in future. If we are committed to early intervention, could we make a change and number our school years from birth, not primary school? This would underline the idea that education starts at birth as well as the importance of the preschool years. It could be argued that this would encourage school readiness among parents and children. We must make it clear that the education cycle does not begin at primary school. My wife and I are fortunate, in that we have five children and 14 grandchildren. Listening to those Members who are experts in this field, I have needed to consider some of my personal experiences.

According to Professor James Heckman and his colleagues, every euro invested in providing preschool services for at-risk children reaps a return of between €8 and €9. These are considerable figures. I would love to strengthen the Minister's ability to convince the Government to open the purse strings for this sensible investment. The early years are a crucial time, particularly for children from disadvantaged backgrounds.

New research published in the December issue of the journal Child Development showed that young children do better in socially mixed settings. For instance, when children with weak language skills are in preschool settings alongside children with strong language skills, their language skills develop faster than the skills of children who are in settings where all of the children have relatively weak skills. The rules of the community child care subvention scheme discourage a social mix, as it is only available in community child care settings, which are primarily located in disadvantaged areas. This means that there is little or no incentive for better-off families to use the same settings. I am unsure about how to overcome this problem, but it is a shame. Young children from disadvantaged backgrounds tend to be in preschool settings where many of their peers are from similar backgrounds.

Many parents do not send their children to preschool. I listened as the Minister cited a figure of 95%. She might correct me on that. My sense is that those who are unemployed and cannot afford it do not send their children to preschool.

How do we nudge parents to make their children attend? The Minister mentioned Scandinavia. Although the majority of kindergartens in Norway are privately run, there are public subsidies and national regulations that set maximum fees. In 2011, the maximum fee charged to parents in Norway was €310 per month, equating to €70 per week. Is reform in Ireland possible?

We must consider how to help people return to work. Sometimes, it is too expensive for people to find jobs if they have children. The children of many experienced mothers have left home. Could we match those mothers up with new jobs and create the conditions for people to work? In Denmark where local authorities are responsible for ensuring the availability of day care facilities, including childminding, childminders are supervised and often co-ordinated by the local authorities, which help to match them with children. We could consider this system closely, as it possesses significant potential.

People forget that disadvantage and mental development are linked with nutrition, as the Minister reminded the House today. International research led by the Institute of Brain Chemistry and Human Nutrition, IBCHN, has shown that poor maternal nutrition leads to poor cognitive ability, developmental brain disorders and a higher risk of cerebral palsy. Is it possible to act on this knowledge? A fat tax and a sugar tax have been mentioned, but people could be dissuaded from eating unhealthy food through the use of social welfare vouchers.

We must also remember that the non-cognitive skills such as interpersonal skills, persistent communication skills and other skills that I call soft skills are very important. A nurse who is easily able to comfort patients has non-cognitive skills and sometimes the most persistent, self-disciplined, adaptable and reliable students and professionals outperform those with higher cognitive skills according to Heckman and Krueger.

The British Labour MP, Graham Allen, published a British Government-sponsored report into early intervention programmes for young children in order to save a considerable amount of money. His idea was simple: place the costs to the taxpayer of a successful child if he goes through life next to those of a non-successful child and calculate the difference. The figure can be seen as a profit. If private investors want a slice of that profit, all they need to do is to agree to fund early intervention projects designed to prevent a child from going off the rails. I was delighted the Minister mentioned some of the philanthropic involvement, but I believe we can encourage far more than that. We have not been good at this and some of the tax changes we introduced in recent years have made it less attractive. We have a lower level of investment in Ireland because those people who are wealthy enough find they cannot give money away without also being taxed on it. It was only introduced a few years ago, but it is possible to change it as there could be a huge opening there. Everybody supports child care and early intervention, and the examples the Minister gave us are also worthy of support. Let us do nothing to hinder it. I congratulate the Minister. What she has done today reminds us of the great work that is being done and we need to encourage more of it.