Dr. Tony Holohan:

It is more of a matter for us and, as I mentioned in my opening statement, we have done work on the development of the sexual health strategy, which involves actions by the Department of Education and Skills, to try to move us more towards a situation where we can increase the sense we can have an expectation of a uniform standard of high quality sex education for children as part of general health education.

Working with the Department of Education and Skills, which we do under the banner of the Healthy Ireland framework where we have a range of different measures, we are trying to improve the extent to which the school setting is seen as an environment in which children can learn and develop and where some of the objectives we have as a sector, whether it is in terms of obesity or physical activity, can be met, and sexual health is one such example.

The quality of the engagement between the two Departments in this area has improved substantially in recent years, but I would have to get a specific report to provide a state of implementation. We have an implementation plan with the actions I have set out, some of which fall to the Department of Education and Skills, and I would be very happy to communicate with the Deputy directly to give her an update if it would be of help.