Caít Keane (Fine Gael) | Oireachtas source

We will not be sitting on International Women's Day. Child care and early intervention are areas close to every woman's heart. We had a great debate here with the Minister for Children and Youth Affairs, Deputy Frances Fitzgerald, yesterday evening on the high-quality early years strategy and its economic benefits to the State. I link the debate with the issue raised by Senator Marc MacSharry - that is, the cutting of child benefit. We have two fine women in work in Deputy Joan Burton and Deputy Frances Fitzgerald. They have their heads screwed on and are working together in the right direction. The Perry preschool project research in America which followed children for 27 years showed the economic return to a state from investment in excellent, high-quality, universal preschool early child care and early family care intervention. There is an economic return to the State of seventeen to one. Every dollar invested yielded $17 per child to the State.

When one sees the children of Bono, the Smurfits and the O'Reillys entitled to the same child benefit as children who have to go to DEIS schools, one could say there have to be cuts. We have inherited a system where we have to ensure that the money is used in the best possible way for every child in Ireland, every mother in Ireland and every father in Ireland. Deputy Fitzgerald is working with Deputy Joan Burton. It was said that economists can now estimate in financial terms the short-term economic contribution of high-quality early-years intervention and the longer-term returns on investment. There are now several long-term studies which have demonstrated not only the benefit to children and parents but also to communities in terms of school dropout rates, welfare and crime prevention. An American economist was quoted on the Heckman curve, which should be looked at by everybody. Everybody should support the Minister and provide her with funding to ensure that she and her colleague, Deputy Joan Burton, can do what they want to do. The returns on human capital investment are greatest for the young because skill begets skill. Younger people have a longer horizon over which to recoup the fruits of the investment. It is not attractive for politicians to ensure that longer-term investment because Governments are only in office for five years. Delayed returns are not attractive for politicians, but this works. We must get behind the Ministers, who are good women with their heads on their shoulders in the right place.