Ms Laura Burke:

We worked with the education unit in An Taisce over the years and the green schools programme is well recognised across Europe and beyond as an extremely good programme. On the GLOBE project itself, this is a programme that has been in operation for many years. The National Aeronautics and Space Administration, NASA and the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration, NOAA, have been involved in it. This is not about telling children what to do; it is about taking measurements of one's natural environment and then comparing those measurements with other countries and being able to see what the difference is in air quality in Ireland versus Germany versus Israel. It is about developing one's scientific skills but there is a common benchmark of how one goes about it. As I said, it is not telling them something, it is about bringing children together from the age of eight to 18 and doing citizen's science and measurements. As I said, air quality is the one we started off with. Some 49 different countries came together in Kerry last year in July for the GLOBE project. For me, it was inspiring to see children from Ghana talking to children from India and America about science, the importance of science and the importance of the natural environment. They went out and they took measurements in Killarney National Park and looked at the environment there. To answer the Deputy's question, because that is an international programme, it is very stringent and it is all about science and scientific measurements so that is what gives us comfort.

That is really important in the context of engaging with schools. We are not engaging directly. We are engaging through this internationally-recognised programme.