Anne Rabbitte (Galway East, Fianna Fail) | Oireachtas source

I thank the witnesses for their presentations this morning. My daughter is in second year, and I had better compliment Ms Murtagh and Ms Lohan, her home economics teachers. The skill sets that children receive are the basis of education, and I welcome that the witnesses have said they would like to see home economics being made compulsory. They have asked that this be the case and when they come before committees, it is important that witnesses tell us what they think would work. That message has come from all parties today.

Ms McCloat spoke about facilities and resources, and cooking applications. Can she expand on that? What are the facilities like? What sort of resources are required? If it were to move to an all-schools approach, whereby all children in all schools were given the opportunity to acquire the life skill sets during the first three years, they would then bring those skill sets home.

Dr. Matvienko-Sikar spoke mainly, from a study point of view, about early years education. Was a study carried out on mothers who breastfeed and the obesity outcomes for their children? In terms of the 24 contact points relating to going back to GPs, we had a long discussion last week around measuring the weight of children. Does she have a view on that? Does she believe that is something that should be taken into consideration in earlier years? Many people spoke about how, by the time a child gets to secondary school, it might be too late. Should we be intervening further in primary schools in order that people know what a healthy weight is, how it is attained and the exercise that should be done?

I seek the input of the witnesses on physical education in schools. Studying home economics is one thing but does physical educational provision in schools complement it?