Ms Kate O'Flaherty:

I do not have the exact percentage but the uptake is very high. We do not yet have the following data. The key ones would be the numbers of children who have undergone the aged two and aged five checks. We understand that they are doing that and recording that. There is a time lag in terms of those data being able to come back to us for analysis. The Deputy is correct that it would be a key baseline, not only in terms of having the satisfaction or the assurance, shall we say, that parents and children are undergoing the assessments but also of what that tells us about the weight of the children as a population.

There is a study, the Childhood Obesity Surveillance Initiative, COSI, which is a global project in which Ireland participates. We have results every couple of years from that for our children and our key data on levels of childhood obesity come from that. The latest COSI is nearly finished in the field and we will have up-to-date data on that. In the trend data - it weighs seven and eight year olds, that is, first class and second class children - we have seen a stabilisation in that the levels of overweight are not increasing. There is a disparity between boys and girls, girls being more overweight, and not the same narrowing of the gap in terms of stabilisation in DEIS schools.

The data that we will have in the coming months will be helpful. These are objective measurements. It is weighing and measuring children in Ireland. Under the obesity policy, that is the key data point that we will be using to measure success against the target, not only in terms of getting a reduction and stabilisation but also narrowing the gap among the inequalities.