Seán Sherlock (Cork East, Labour) | Oireachtas source

I am a former Minister of State with responsibility for research and a great believer in breaking down silos. We can see the effects of the research when we look at the translational elements of the Laya Healthcare and Super Troopers programmes. The metrics for the satisfaction levels under the Super Troopers programme probably somewhere map the GUI longitudinal study. When we, as a society, start breaking down silos and get two eminent researchers such as Dr. McCrory and Professor Hevey to work across platforms such as psychology and health, perhaps we might start to see the programmes have a greater translational effect. I thank Dr. McCrory for his interaction.

I have been reading the Super Troopers handbook which is mightily impressive. I have a little fellow at home who is almost ten months of age and look forward to engaging in the animal antics, doing the scissors jumps, the pasta dance, the magic numbers and taking part in the ball alley and potato races. It is about creating something that is about fun and subtle behavioural change. It is very positive. The statistics for take-up rates by schools speak for themselves. There were 330 primary schools in the pilot project; there are now 1,500 schools, with 238,000 children. If we, as policymakers, can do anything to help to have it fully translated into all schools, I ask Dr. McCrory to please contact us. It is a very worthy programme. Perhaps we might kick the tyres a little more on the research Professor Hevey has conducted and then bring it back to the Government and especially the Department of Education and Skills and the Department of Health. I would love to see bodies such as Science Foundation Ireland putting more funding into this space to see if we can really disrupt the trajectory towards obesity. I do not need to tell Laya Healthcare how much it is costing by way of interventions every year. We all pay our subscriptions to the Layas and VHIs of this world.

Our premia are increasing and this is obviously because we have community rating and we are funding more and more health interventions for probably preventable diseases. Therefore, anything we as policymakers can do that, in the long term, supports such initiatives as Super Troopers, we absolutely must do.

The one question I have is where this needs to go. If the witnesses had one ask of Government as to the next steps, what would it be? They mentioned resources earlier. Are they satisfied they have the resources to take this a step further? What would be their wish list if they had the Minister for Health or the Taoiseach here, for instance? Mr. O'Connor can answer the questions after Ms O'Reilly.