Jan O'Sullivan (Limerick City, Labour) | Oireachtas source

The Department of Children and Youth Affairs is developing the strategy, but in conjunction with my Department and other Departments.

There is a twin-track economic argument involving, obviously, allowing women to go back to work, which was a point made by Senator Zappone, but also in terms of the child's development. If children miss out in the early years - this point was made towards the end of the debate - catching up later becomes difficult and they find it hard to participate later on. It is crucial, both in terms of those young people in their personal development and in terms of how they contribute to society and the economy later on.

Senator Heffernan spoke particularly about the engaged holistic learning from his experience as a teacher. That, I suppose, is the kind of learning we want in the early years. It is based on play and enjoyment, but also on it being a learning environment, and that while the child may not be conscious of it, one provides a quality experience where he or she is learning. We have all of that data to feed into what we are doing.

I have covered some of the specific points raised. I do not know if I have answered anybody's particular questions. In response to Senator Barrett on languages, which is probably not closely connected to what I am talking about today, I met the future skills needs group last week and one of the areas it stated we need for the economy is more skill in languages. I agree with the Senator that the earlier, the better.