Aideen Hayden (Labour) | Oireachtas source

I also welcome the Minister to the House. Today is almost the anniversary of a similar debate which we held last year on 7 March. I know it is common in business to schedule certain topics on board agendas on an annual basis for example, corporate governance or risk management.

It is common in business to schedule certain topics such as corporate governance or risk management on board agendas on an annual basis and it is a good practice to take a similar approach in the world of politics, particularly in an area such as the one we are discussing.

In the debate on this area last year it was noted that ¤1.3 billion has been spent on the area of early childhood in the previous decade. With respect to the current and previous Government, it is honest and fair to say that as the previous decade progressed our understanding improved considerably of the importance of early intervention in establishing outcomes for children, whether they be educational, health, welfare or child protection.

This Government has made a particular commitment to Irish children with the appointment of the Minister, Deputy Fitzgerald, with full responsibility to this position which is a full Cabinet post. Putting the children's referendum to the Irish people was also an important step in recognising the importance of Irish children and our commitment to them. Like many people, I wish the referendum had passed with a greater majority but I am conscious of the fact that the failure to overwhelmingly endorse the referendum signified a reluctance on the part of the Irish people and a concern about the failures of the State previously to protect children. Unfortunately some of those failures were more recent. I am thinking of the case of the family in Monageer who unfortunately took their own lives and it was made evident that there were many shortcomings in the social services in this country.

Like Senator Van Turnhout, I would like to congratulate the Minister on the document she circulated to us. I agree with her it is an excellent document. It should be circulated to all Members of the Oireachtas. It is comprehensive and it is almost like an academic paper. It comprehensively covers all of the bases and provides a strong justification for the importance of early intervention.

As someone who is passionately committed to equality in our society, there is no doubt in my mind that the measures that enshrine inequality in society are there at a very early stage of a child's life. Children who come from families where there is high standard of education and a commitment to learning do better at school. There is plenty of research to demonstrate that children in environments where parents read and where books are evident in the home perform better in an educational environment. I was struck by the acknowledgment in the paper on early intervention that assistance to parents is very important, particularly to parents where there was not necessarily an environment of learning in their early lives. It is also true to say that children who go to school properly nourished learn better and the evidence shows that the level of nutrition that children receive from birth, and even before birth, influences their brain growth and brain activity. The life chances of children are determined from a very early stage and those life chances are deeply connected to social and economic inequality.

I was struck by comments made by the former governor of Mountjoy Prison, John Lonergan, that the vast majority of the prison population came from a number of particularly deprived areas in Dublin which were easily identifiable. Apart from the 2011 OECD report, in 2005 the National Economic and Social Forum published a report titled Early Childhood Care and Education and it stated that ability gaps open early and they persist and that this is true for other forms of verbal and mathematical ability as well as cognitive behaviour.

In 2002, research into the courts system in Ireland found that children in front of the courts were more likely to come from single-parent families, families with low incomes, families in consistent poverty, families where parents were long-term unemployed and families that were experiencing poor housing. It is important that we do not lose sight of the fact that the outcomes that children have reflect the wider society in which they live. It is true to say that we can intervene in very positive ways in those outcomes.

I would like to pay tribute to the work of organisations such as Barnardos which intervenes in those types of communities to bring about positive outcomes and to research it has done which found that for every ¤1 spent in intervening in a child's life the State ultimately saves ¤8. I also pay tribute to the work of Professor Pat Dolan, joint founder and director of UNESCO Child and Family Research Centre in NUI Galway, who estimates that there is evidence that for every ¤1 spent there is a ¤29 return to the State.

I also pay tribute to the work of the local area partnerships in tackling the scourge of poverty, of which children are the principal victims. I highlight the work done by the Ballymun Partnership which works hand in hand with the local community not only to promote local job growth but to actively promote learning through projects such as the youngballymun initiative and so on. With that in mind, I ask the Minister to be cautious in cutting youth services budgets, particularly those that have an enormous importance in deprived areas such as Blanchardstown, Ballymun, Darndale, Tallaght and other areas where a little money goes a long way in giving many young people a leg up at a critical point in their lives.

Aside from early intervention, and there is clear evidence it is of critical importance, that intervention must be effective. I am conscious that in the four Dublin local authorities there is a spend of ¤29,000 for every homeless person in the region, and that is not including the amount that is raised in charitable donations. However, research carried out by the Children's Research Centre in Trinity College shows that many young people who were interviewed for their research were known to the various agencies of the State, including child care agencies, youth homelessness services and the criminal justice system. In spite of the engagements those young people had with the State in its various forms, we still had a situation where two out of every three children who had been in State care were homeless within two years of leaving a care setting. Therefore, we must be cognisant that outcomes are not only related to the services that are available but to the quality of those services.

To echo the sentiments expressed by Senator Van Turnhout, I hope that the new child and family support agency fulfils all the hope that the Minister has for it and I hope that we will see the relevant legislation in early course.

It is clear that early intervention is a key critical issue not only in the area of education but in the areas of health and engagement with the criminal justice system but looking at the Heckman curve in the Minister's paper I was struck by the fact that it is clear that the earlier one intervenes in somebody's life the more effective that is. I must emphasise that much of this is an outcome of poverty and social inclusion issues and we can never forget the wider picture.