Secretary General Kevin McCarthy launches OECD TSI Report

Check against delivery

Thank you Carol, I would like to echo your thanks, and to acknowledge the work of our OECD friends and the support of our European Commission colleagues. This report is the result of significant consultation and input from across government departments, with agencies and from civil society. I know some of those who made significant contributions are with us today, and you have my sincere thanks. And I want to particularly acknowledge that this project would not have been possible without the contribution of a core team of people - Elisa Gomez-Aleman from DG Reform, Moritz Ader, Ollin Perez Raynaud from the OECD, Roberta Mulligan from Tusla and Bryan Patten, Bridget Wilson and Clare Farrell from my own department.

All of your work, whether it was via interviews, attending consultations or providing written input has informed a very valuable and thought provoking report.

This report tells a story of the lives of children and young people in Ireland. It tells a story of over a decade’s work to gather better data, to harmonise policy ambitions and coordinate the delivery of services. And the story it tells is complex and nuanced, where real progress has been made for those we seek to serve in Ireland but where significant gaps of policy and services still remain.

The report highlights some of the places where Ireland’s children are world leaders:

Ireland is a top performer among OECD countries regarding educational attainment of young people. We have one of the highest shares of young people holding a tertiary degree, with a significant increase compared to our OECD counterparts over the past decade
and at secondary level, we see very positive PISA scores for reading, mathematics and science, and Ireland was one of few OECD country where PISA reading performance improved significantly for both advantaged and disadvantaged students
and outside of education, young people in Ireland are 50% more likely to volunteer and getting involved with youth organisations than their EU peers

But, it also shines a light on where our children and young people face real challenges to have their rights respected and realised. It tells us that:

in Ireland most children experiencing child specific material deprivation do not come from income poor households. While the tax and benefits system is more effective than our peers at reducing child poverty, non-income poor children make up 81% of all materially deprived children in Ireland compared to the European OECD average of 67%
the report highlights that to alleviate children’s exposure to material deprivation, doing more than lifting household income is needed
it highlights significant gaps of access, particularly for materially deprived children, across key services areas – in childcare, in healthcare, in nutrition, and in housing

And it highlights the long tail of the impact that child poverty and material deprivation has for those children as adults and for society more broadly. Citing evidence from the Growing up in Ireland study, it reminds us that economic vulnerability is associated with poorer child outcomes across all dimensions of well-being.

It is not a surprise that the report tells us that the needs of children and young people are varied and complex. For children and young people to thrive, they require positive input and support from a wide variety of sources, an eco-system that is whole of government and whole of society.

The report states:

"the breadth and depth of social inequalities in child well-being mean that policy efforts are needed on multiple fronts. Different areas of child well-being and different aspects of children’s lives are frequently inter-connected; therefore, policy efforts are likely to be fully effective only when designed and delivered in a co-ordinated and coherent way, with government departments, agencies, and other actors from within and outside government working together around shared objectives"

And this is at the core of the report and its recommendations. It explore the question of how do we deliver responses to complex challenges, which require dynamic, innovative and integrated responses at policy and implementation levels? And how do we deliver them through structures which must be accountable, robust and stable?

This report poses deep and structural questions, and presents tangible and actionable recommendations for this department, whole of government responses and others involved in delivering for children and young people in Ireland.

In particular, I wish to briefly speak to three of the themes in the report:

1) Promoting evidence-based policymaking and services,

2) Mainstreaming the perspectives of children and young people in policymaking, and

3) Promoting policy coherence through Young Ireland

I think few in this room will need convincing on the value of evidence based policymaking and services. If we are to meet the needs of Ireland’s children and young people, we must understand their lives, appreciate that there is diversity in their experiences, and recognise that the barriers they face are constantly changing.

We all know the value and importance of robust and up-to-date data and evidence for the development of policy and the delivery of services. And, within DCEDIY, we are proud of the excellent work done through by colleagues on initiatives like Growing up in Ireland, the State of the Nation’s Children (SONC) Report, the ‘What Works’ Evidence Hub and our work with Tusla on the research examining the lives of children in care, to name a few.

But this report, drawing on valuable examples from international peers, identifies ways we can further strengthen our evidence base. It explores practically how we can promote consistency in data collected and how we overcome barriers to effective collection, use and sharing of that data.

With inter-connected problems, requiring policy efforts on multiple fronts, the report has suggestions on how we meet the challenge of ensuring that datasets do speak to each other, how local level data can help inform planning and delivery of services, and for how we put in place the technological solutions across government to track child and youth data.

A second theme the report explores is the mainstreaming the perspectives of children and young people in policymaking. As we continue to improve our evidence base, it is critical that we capture the view and experiences of those directly affected by policy.

The report acknowledges and recognises Ireland as among the leading countries across the OECD on child and youth consultation and engagement in policymaking. And it highlights the work of the National Participation Office and Hub na nÓg, our national centre of excellence and coordination.

Having recently met with members of our National Youth Assembly, and seeing Dáil na nÓg in action only a fortnight ago, I know directly the passion and insight that our young people bring to policy This report offers suggestions on how we can further strengthen capacities across government departments and agencies to deliver, and make full use of, meaningful consultation with children, young people.

It also highlights the need to strengthen policymakers’ capacities to engage with seldom heard children, an issue that I know our colleagues in the Youth Participation Unit are actively working on.

The final theme of the report I wish to highlight is the need to promote policy coherence through Young Ireland. In many ways the context of this report is the development and launch of Young Ireland, our new National Policy Framework for Children and Young People. As we seek to establish Young Ireland, we want to avoid the challenges we heard through consultations and reflected in this report – issues of coordination fatigue, unclear allocation of responsibilities, low capacities to engage in governance structures, and a lack of ownership over cross sectoral issues.

This comes back to my initial summary of the core focus of this report. With complex challenges, requiring multifaceted, dynamic and integrated responses at policy and implementation levels, how do we establish practical and effective structures to tackle them?

And here, the report poses some challenging questions and provides interesting recommendations.

OECD evidence highlights that developing incentives to promote cooperation across institutions is a precondition to effectively drive cross-sectoral work. But this report suggests that our funding streams can be a significant barrier – rather than an incentive - to encourage cross-departmental collaboration. So, if finance is not always a lever for cooperation, what other approaches should we consider?

The report has recommendations including:

that we coordinate and clarify the mandates of coordination bodies for Young Ireland, to make sure that we are not creating avoidable overlaps
that we align, to the extent possible, strategic goals, objectives strategies with an impact on children and young people across departments
that we integrate the monitoring and accountability processes of relevant policies into the ones set up for Young Ireland

The report and recommendations here are of great value to Young Ireland, as we establish its new structures and seek to develop the culture of cooperation in its delivery. And it also of interest and value for the many other horizontal strategies that this department leads on and participates in.

As I close, I want to again thank DG Reform for their support of this work, and to the extensive OECD team who created this valuable report. This report is timely, challenging and thought provoking. I know it will be of value to the Young Ireland team in DCEDIY, and to the Young Ireland community across departments, agencies and civil society. I am sure it will make a valuable contribution in our journey of respecting and realising the rights of all children in Ireland.