Ms Christine Mooney:

The main agency we felt we needed on board, in terms of endorsement, was the HSE. However, it took us a long time to get the HSE involved in the project. It took almost 12 months of knocking on the door of the HSE, which was very frustrating. The HSE is the key agency involved in health promotion in this country but it did not immediately see the benefit of endorsing this project. After the pilot scheme we approached the HSE again and showed it our results and only then did the executive come on board. It endorsed the project and is now involved in taking it to the wider county, in conjunction with us and the sports partnership. If that model continues to produce evidence of success it will be taken across the country. That is our vision for the project. It is a slow process but I would like to think that in 12 months time we will have a nationwide project weight loss.