Best ‘rainy day fund’ we can invest in is development of our children

This is a week I always look forward to. On Friday, we’re having our national collection — Barnardos, that is. 

It’s a great opportunity to be out on the street with volunteers, meeting people and talking about the work we do.

I’m blown away every year by two things. First, the number of people who go out and volunteer. There’ll be around 2,000 of them, including a large number of employees from Dell, one of the most successful and long-standing technology companies we’ve ever had in Ireland. I’ve met hundreds of them over the last couple of years, in Dublin, Cork and Limerick, and what amazes me is how much they get it.

People who work in successful driven companies don’t have to volunteer for anything, but they do it with a heart and a half. And they bring their project management skills to the job. These are high efficiency volunteers, who leave no stone unturned to get the message out.

They’ll be accompanied by many more who have supported our work for years. Sometimes, when you find yourself wondering does anyone care, the thing you need to do is work alongside a volunteer outside a shopping centre or on a street corner.

Because the other thing that really catches you on the day of the national collection is the decency and generosity of ordinary people. Sometimes, early in the morning especially, people can be a bit grumpy. They’ve just got off a packed bus or train, they haven’t had their coffee yet, and the last thing they need is to meet someone like me shaking a bucket in their faces.

How can we call ourselves a civilised country when so many of our children face so uncertain a future?

But even if they grumble, Irish people are really slow to pass a collector by. Much more often, you’ll get a smile and a hurried “keep up the good work” as the money goes into the bucket. I always end national collection day marvelling at the number of people I meet who may not fully understand what it is that Barnardos does, but who know that it’s necessary and that we do our best to do it well. That’s enough for most people.

The other thing we’re doing this week in Barnardos is publishing our annual review. We try to take the business of accountability seriously, because if people invest in you, they’re absolutely entitled to know how their money is spent. And that’s true whether they’ve given you a lot or a little.

So the annual review is up on our website now. There’s a sense in which it tells a story of success. With the help of thousands of people from all around the country, we’ve worked with more children and families than ever before, and we’ve done it in ways that have a really good impact. Despite a lot of challenges during the year, the 400 people who work in Barnardos have each done their bit — and a lot more besides — to try to ensure that the children and families they work with come through the issues they face. But in another way, the story we’re telling is a story of need. When I started working in Barnardos, 13 years ago, I used to say — and I was only half-joking —that my ambition was to make us all redundant.

When parents have the resources to be the parents they want to be, when no child lives in hunger or fear, organisations like ours wouldn’t be needed any more.

Well, here’s a figure. And it’s not my figure. It comes from a recent document published by the tax strategy group of the Department of Finance (it doesn’t get more official than that). A few years ago, the government published a target for itself. They wanted to half the number of children living in consistent poverty from 150,000. Taking 75,000 children out of poverty was a pretty daunting figure back then. But the tax strategy group has estimated that in order to do the same now and half the current figure of 190,000, some 95,000 children will have to be lifted above the poverty line.

Just think about that for a minute. Our economy is in strong recovery. We’re the toast, and the boast, of Europe. Unemployment numbers are going down, disposable income is going up, new car sales are hitting the roof, dozens of cranes are once again visible all over our towns and cities. And there are 40,000 more children in poverty.

The reality that organisations like ours face — and there are many more like us — is that we struggle to keep abreast of the demand for help and support. We’re dealing with thousands of families who feel that the job of giving their children a decent start is like battling through quicksand.

We’re dealing with kids who are hungry, cold, frightened, kids who live in homes that are damp and over-crowded.

And that’s to ignore completely the more than 3,000 children in Ireland who have nowhere to call home, surely the most shaming thing of all.

What the hell are we doing? How can we call ourselves a civilised country when so many of our children face so uncertain a future? We’re always ready to condemn the young people who get involved in anti-social behaviour or crime, but we’re unwilling to spend the tiny amounts it would take to put decent preventative services in place.

We’re about to pass a budget that’s going to have a few goodies in it for everyone. But nothing, or certainly nothing life-changing, for children.

Could you imagine what it would be like if, on budget day, Paschal Donohoe stood up and said: “There are too many children in consistent poverty in Ireland. It’s not acceptable and it has to stop. I can’t fix this problem overnight, but I’m simply not going to allow it to get any worse. In fact, I’m going to take action to reverse this trend now. And so, in order to make a start, every penny of investment in this budget is going to be child-proofed.”

THAT wouldn’t be an easy announcement to make, because if it were serious, it would mean no tax cuts in this budget. It would mean no fiver for the old age pensioners. It would mean no social welfare increases at all unless they were to the benefit of children. It would mean no increase in funding for roads or universities or Garda overtime.

But sooner or later, we have to recognise one simple fact. There is a profound link between child poverty and a damaged economy. A country where children grow up healthy and safe, with access to high quality, developmental childcare as a right, where shelter and nutrition are taken for granted, is a country that can survive economic downturns.

The best “rainy day fund” we can invest in is the development of our children.

Economically, it’s a no-brainer. But I actually think that if our government decided that its main task now is to break the cycle of child poverty, to ensure that this generation is the last generation so trapped, it would make us all prouder of our country.