Mick Wallace (Wexford, Independent)
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To ask the Minister for Children and Youth Affairs if she will include specific commitments to Traveller children in the National Children and Young People's Policy Framework, due to be published mid-2013; and if she will make a statement on the matter. [17307/13]

Frances Fitzgerald (Dublin Mid West, Fine Gael)
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My Department is developing a new strategy for children and young people. It will build on Our Children - Their Lives, Ireland’s first children’s strategy which was published in 2000 and it will cover the 5-year period from 2013 to 2018.

In keeping with my Department’s responsibilities for children and young people, the new Children and Young People’s Policy Framework is being developed in a holistic way which will comprehend the continuum of the life-course from infancy through to early and middle childhood, adolescence and early adulthood. It will be the overarching Framework under which policy and services for children and young people will be developed and implemented in the State.

The Framework will address the broad issues of child deprivation and the social inclusion of marginal groups including members of the Traveller Community, children in immigrant families and children with special needs.

I anticipate that the final draft of the Framework will be presented to Government for approval by the middle of the year.