James Reilly (Dublin North, Fine Gael) | Oireachtas source

I thank Deputy McLellan for her understanding of the terms of reference. She mentioned people in direct provision who are in close contact with children and yet unvetted. That is certainly an issue we will need to look into. I have met the Minister for Justice and Equality to discuss the issue.

The Deputy also mentioned the involvement of the Department of Children and Youth Affairs in proper nutrition. Yesterday in Armagh along with the Minister for Health, Deputy Varadkar, I met the Deputy's party colleague in the North, the Minister for Agriculture and Rural Development, Ms Michelle O'Neill, MLA, and the Minister of Health, Social Services and Public Safety, Mr. Jim Wells, MLA, to discuss this area.

The Department of Children and Youth Affairs has a unique position. We operate in a very different way from most Departments. We do not have a silo effect with specific areas of responsibility to the exclusion of everything else. We operate with a core responsibility for certain matters, but we have impact on and co-operate with the Departments of Education and Skills, Justice and Equality, the Environment, Community and Local Government, and Health. I would say ours is the only Department to have permanent civil servants from other Departments based in our Department. We have people from the Departments of Justice and Equality, Health, and Education and Skills, who belong in other Departments but work in our Department to help co-ordinate and have a more coherent approach to the well-being of children.

Nutrition is a major focus for us. We have Healthy Ireland, which is a cross-departmental initiative to improve the health of the nation. Our equivalent of that in a smaller way is Better Outcomes, Brighter Futures. We look at all that. We look at school nutrition. We look at education and we look at enabling children to help them cook meals themselves, understand the value of food, reduce the reliance on ready-made food and become more self-reliant.

The Deputy's issue is well raised and is one of serious concern, considering the level of obesity, particularly the level of obesity and the incidence of type 2 diabetes in teenagers, which is something I never saw when I was practising as a doctor ten or 15 years ago but now is not unusual. There is no question; it is down to diet and lack of physical activity.

I will ask Ms Clarke to respond to the Deputy's questions on direct provision as well as the question relating to the aftercare service and how long the financial support lasts after they leave.

I come to Deputy Maloney's questions on the school completion programme cut. I was not here yesterday because I was at a North-South Ministerial Council meeting, so my absence was unavoidable.

I apologise for not being there myself, but I am very pleased that the answer Deputy Maloney was given shows that attention is being given to this area. The cut was right across all services. It was part of the comprehensive review of expenditure, CRE. It was probably highlighted later than many of the other ones and therefore possibly stood out. I could not agree with Deputy Maloney more. The school completion programme is extremely important. Everyone knows, and all the statistics show, that if one falls out of education early, one is more likely to end up in trouble, to have social problems and to do less well in life in terms of one's personal financial situation. It is important we encourage people to stay in school and complete their education and it is very important when it comes to minority groups that we encourage them, too, to stay in college. As the Deputy mentioned, the ESRI is doing a review and we look forward to the outcome of that.

I will now hand over to Ms Michele Clarke, who will address some of the questions raised by Deputy McLellan.