Alan Farrell (Dublin Fingal, Fine Gael) | Oireachtas source

Senator Warfield has hit the nail on the head regarding the stereotyping of home economics. As Ms Barry noted, most students, including me, had a choice between a practical subject or home economics in first year at around the same time. In the 1980s, I did not have any practical reason to choose the subject so I chose something else. As the witnesses implied, being exposed to it through friends in secondary school, it is a subject I would not have minded doing. I am fortunate in that I grew up in a house where both my parents cooked, predominantly my father during the week and my mother at the weekend.

That is possibly role reversal, but that is the way my family was. I was very much involved in the cookery. There is a great deal of pressure on parents to find the time to cook a healthy meal. Many people, although not enough, do batch cooking. People get home from work at 6 p.m. to 6.15 p.m. on a weekday and the last thing they want to do is all the preparation to produce food in a meaningful way for the family or for the adults. It becomes an even bigger issue when adults and children need to be fed and one must plan ahead. One of the worst aspects of parents being extraordinarily busy is that they have to consider what the childminder, the nanny or the childcare facility where the children go feed them?

Based on my experience of the past couple of years, I have observed what it is that children are eating. Often parents do not think about it. People my think about in the car or on the train on the way home, but many people do not think about it at 4 p.m. when the minder is thinking about what she or he will feed them. An important aspect of childcare is giving children that skill set. Dr. Elaine Mooney referred to giving people confidence. One of the major issues for me a busy parent is having the confidence to go into the kitchen to prepare something healthy for all to eat or instead pick up the phone or, worse, use an app, which is tempting and dangerous, to order food.

What are the practicalities of making home economics not only a compulsory subject at second level but introducing it as a more hands-on subject at primary level? I agree that pooled resources in a primary school that can be lifted and moved into a classroom once a week or so makes sense. How much it will cost is the question that must be asked but it is our job to address that. From a practical perspective it makes sense. I camped frequently when I was a child and I know how easy it is to use a portable kitchen, but it would not necessarily be wise to bring a gas cylinder into a classroom. There are many options now and they are affordable as well, which is good. How should this be resourced? I imagine that, like most subjects, there is a shortage of home economics teachers throughout the country. How can sufficient numbers be upskilled to get to the point where we are able to introduce compulsory home economics at second level?