Minister Frances Fitzgerald announces new Early Years Strategy

At the end of January the Minister for Children & Youth Affairs Frances Fitzgerald announced that in 2012 Ireland will see the development of Irelands first National Early Years strategy for children ages 0-6 years.  The primitive years are the most important for the development of children and Minister Fitzgerald stated "Early-intervention in childrens lives and quality childhood experiences are cruticial to a childs emotional, cognetive and social development". 

The new strategy will support Irish Families in bringing up their children, indentifying the services they want to have access to and the information that will help them to be confident and secure partents.  The proposed Early Years Strategy will cover all aspects of childrens experiences in their early years including health, family support, care and education and will indentify the structrures and policies needed to improve early years experience in Ireland.

Minister Fitzgerald feels that this new strategy will also play a signifiant part in Irelands future economic planning as children who experience high quality pre-school are higher achievers in education and in employment and then this in turn leads to the next generation, the future of our country.