Suppose you were thinking of investing the last few bob you had left in some useful purpose. And suppose you met a man who told you that he knows of a sure thing; an investment that would give you a return of eight euro for every one that you put into it. Wouldn't you pay a bit of attention? And if you discovered that the man offering this advice had won the Nobel Prize for Economics, wouldn't you be really interested?

James Heckman is ranked among the top ten economists in the world. He has proven that intervening early in a vulnerable child's life will reap enormous long-term savings. Basically, for every euro invested there is at least an eight fold return as future savings are made in areas such as unemployment benefit, crime, rehabilitation programmes, job training and teenage pregnancies. Getting in early and transforming a child's life is not only good for the individual; the pay-off to society and to the exchequer is enormous.  There are very few private investments or public policy programmes that can offer a similar guarantee.

At a time of economic uncertainty it is vital that money is spent wisely, where it is most needed, and where it will have most impact. Providing supports for a child as early as possible is much more effective than trying to address problems at a much later stage after they have spiralled out of control and spilled into their community. At this time of year, Ministers are undergoing the annual ritual agony known as the Estimates campaign. One by one they will be expected to troop into the Department of Finance with a list of the cuts they will execute next year. And if they are not sufficiently forthcoming, the Finance officials will ensure that the cuts they take back to their departments will be enough to meet the economic and fiscal mantra of retrenchment. We know enough about this process to know that the pressure on Ministers will be intense, and the temptation will be to make easy cuts, the sort that will not offend any powerful lobby group or vested interest. But we also know that it is the hidden cuts that can do the most damage. For example, most people are now expecting that the HSE will be told that at best, its budget must stand still next year. But there are aspects of the HSE budget that cannot stand still. A considerable portion of that Budget is spent in hospitals and in the General Medical Scheme, both places where, for one reason or another, a surge in demand can lead to an unavoidable over-run in expenditure. If the HSE is forced into a position where it has to compensate for over-runs in one area by making even deeper cuts in the allocation to others, the result, inevitably, will be that the most vulnerable, the most defenceless, and the least visible will suffer most.

Barnardos works with children and parents who have needs that often prevent them from reaching their full potential and participating fully in their community. We recently published our Annual Review for 2007 where we highlighted the multiple needs of the children we work with, ranging from emotional abuse and neglect, to mental health issues and educational disadvantage.

Those needs have their root cause in poverty. They spring from marginalisation and neglect. They are compounded by the difficulties faced by families that are marginalised, in communities that are cut off from the benefits of the economic growth of the past. They are the sort of needs that break down resilience in a child, that make it ever harder for them to benefit from education and to play a productive role in their communities. And a failure to address those needs can lead to the continued growth of a gang culture, to more anti-social behaviour, to crime and alienation. For that reason alone, the communities that failed to benefit from the celtic tiger must not now be expected to bear the burden of present retrenchment, however necessary that retrenchment is.

The economic impact of cut-backs on 'forgotten communities' must be fully recognised. More public investment is needed, not less. Any cutbacks in, for example, family supports, educational access measures, child protection and welfare budgets, or even policing, could have devastating and long-term consequences. And forgotten communities make easier targets. 

Sacrificing the most vulnerable in our society is not the answer to the current slow-down. It is not only damning lives now, but it is also creating problems that will come with a huge economic and social cost in the future. Problems that we can ill afford, socially or economically. 

So if someone offers you a better way – an investment that pays back eight euro for every one invested - it might make sense to listen to him.