Feargal Quinn (Independent) | Oireachtas source

I welcome the Minister and thank him for giving us such an explanation of Dr. Muldoon's CV, if I may say that. It seems to me that we have exactly the right man in Dr. Muldoon. The role is important given that we have such a young population that is also increasing at the fastest rate in the EU. We need someone who can listen to children, and based on what we have heard today from various speakers, I think we have somebody. In regard to Senator Leyden's memory of school, I think we all have memories good and bad, but to the best of my knowledge, my memory is certainly very good. The Senator mentioned his first teacher. My first teacher was Sr. Paula and I have nothing but great memories of her in the Holy Faith convent back so many years ago.

I have a vested interest here, because I have 16 grandchildren and am therefore looking forward to making sure that others who have children in Ireland will be assured of safety and security. That is why I am interested in the reference from Senator van Turnhout to direct provision. I would like to know if there have been any discussions recently by the ombudsman's office about widening its remit to investigate direct provision for asylum issues. It seems to me that is one of the areas that has been left behind in the past.

One of my other experiences has been to do with early childhood education. In my supermarkets we had playhouses that looked after young children up to a certain age and what was interesting was that when they went to school, the teachers were able to identify the children that had been to the playhouse in Superquinn because they had learned. Children were there from the age of two, three or four, before they went to school. It seems to me that we can create benefit without necessarily relying entirely on the State to do it. We have talked in this House before about the importance of early childhood education. They are very formative years and are absolutely crucial to a child's development but I think we could do a lot more.

One very interesting development is in Finland, where from 1 January a new preschool education law came into effect, which obliges parents to arrange education for their children before they start primary school. That is a change from privilege to duty. According to a Finnish Ministry of education survey, some of the children did not take part in preschool education because the parents wanted to keep them at home or because the distance to school was too long. In many respects, Finland is leading the way in education. Such a change may mean that no child is too far behind when they start school. Finland recognises that these particular years are vital. Irish schoolchildren start school earlier than their Finnish counterparts but it is interesting to ask whether preschool should be made mandatory. Perhaps this is a question for the ombudsman to get involved with.

There was a young man on the radio yesterday or the day before - not a young man, he is 34 now - who has been in jail for close to half his life. He has had three long jail sentences and when he was asked what went wrong and how he ended up in that situation, he said he never learned, in those early years, how to read or write. He discovered the vast majority of others in jail with him did not know how to read or write and were also illiterate. Something we can do is ensure we have an education system that the quality of the education is important. I gather that boys have a problem in reading skills. We know that we have literacy and numeracy issues here and that is something I would like to see more attention paid to in later life.

One of the most interesting messages in terms of education focus is advocated by the World Bank. It says that education should focus on basic cognitive skills like reading, writing and communication until children are 17 or 18, and that vocational training should wait. We are well aware in this country of the massive amounts of children who left school to go into trades and did not have the skills to adapt when the economy changed. We have to allow children to be flexible by giving them a strong base.

It is also interesting to note that early childhood marriage has been found to have a negative effect on literacy rates for young women. Given the evidence, some experts argue that the minimum legal age of marriage should be raised to 21 years. The current minimum age here is 18 but we know that a lot of exemptions are granted. There was something on the radio this morning or yesterday about a Traveller family where a young man of 16 was getting married to a young woman of 17. We should consider international evidence here, especially in light of incidents of children being forced into marriage.

On the wider issue, we could do more in terms of research and how we can better prepare children with very basic life skills such as basic financial management. I do not really see this being taught at schools. There is a definite link between poor financial management skills and dropout rates at third level education. One bank in the UK has a programme delivered in schools that includes lessons on managing a private bank account and understanding information on pay slips for younger children. Children from age 16 receive classes on credit card use and insurance policy selection among other things. I know 16 sounds a little bit late to be doing that but it is a reminder of what can be done. There is a situation in Ireland where children are getting into financial difficulties because they are unaware of basic financial management skills. It is an area where we can do a lot more in the future.

On children's rights, and this would very much be Senator van Turnhout's baby, there is a lot more that businesses can do. In the past few years, UNICEF launched its children's rights and business principles initiative, which calls on businesses to carry out human rights due diligence, assessing how they may impact human rights and children's rights. Big companies such as IKEA have signed up to the scheme, which gets businesses that are active globally to assess their impact on children's rights. It is of course a moral issue but it can also be beneficial to companies. They get a higher recognition when they do something good like this. I understand schemes have been launched in a number of countries, including Britain, but I do not think the scheme has been launched here. It would be beneficial to look at the scheme in terms of guiding Government policy on improving children's rights. Businesses can do more in terms of children's rights and it could be possible for the ombudsman's office to raise awareness of the issue. It is not a question of forcing things to be done - just raising awareness would be sufficient to do it. I know from my experience in the supermarket business, people felt very good if the employer or service provider was acting in the community interest. It is good for business and for the community as a whole.