Louise O'Reilly (Dublin Fingal, Sinn Fein) | Oireachtas source

I thank the witnesses for sharing their experiences and information with us.

It is fair to say, and I will not give away my age, that the curriculum has moved on since I attended school. That is a good thing but we have a little further to go. I listened to the presentations and I was startled to learn that sometimes RSE takes place during religion classes. I wish to refer to a newspaper article that was published in 2014 where it was highlighted that schools used external agencies. As Mr. Moran mentioned, not all teachers are skilled enough to teach these classes. Does the Department have oversight in cases where external agencies are used? Is it left to the board of management to provide oversight? I ask because when I attended school there were organisations that would have been more comfortable teaching RSE such as Pure in Heart Ireland. Do some schools still use textbooks that exclusively focus on heterosexual relationships or abstinence from sex until marriage?

I am curious about the external agencies. Is there a register and regulations for external agencies? We have had discussions at this committee and the Oireachtas Joint Committee on Health about rogue agencies offering women counselling, a term I use advisedly. Can the use of external agencies be regulated? Is it simply a matter for the boards of management to decide?

Ms McGovern mentioned that the Department of Children and Youth Affairs allocated €86,952 to the National Youth Council of Ireland to support the implementation of the national youth health programme. To me, that sounds like an astonishingly small amount of money and is a loaves and fishes job. Will she give us a breakdown of the budget and outline what could be done if more money were allocated?