Alan Dillon (Mayo, Fine Gael) | Oireachtas source

I thank the witnesses. The contributions from Conor, Olga and LilyRose were all brilliant and I thank them for joining us today and giving us an insight into the challenges they faced during the pandemic. I also acknowledge the wonderful work by Ms Howard and her colleagues in the Ark children's cultural centre and thank her for being here today as well. Covid has certainly had a huge impact on the progression of many children. Over the next few weeks and months we need to redouble our efforts to ensure we re-energise and motivate our young people to participate in extracurricular activities, be that sport, art, culture, drama, music or dance. They have lost out on a huge amount of time in many of those areas. From listening to the contributions today it is clear that they are more than eager and excited to get back playing with their friends and hopefully the summer will give them further opportunities to do that.

Mental and physical health was mentioned in all three contributions. That is hugely significant and we cannot discount how our young people have shown that resilience and responded in a way that has been enlightening for many adults. I am looking for an understanding of what the witnesses found to be most beneficial when taking care of their mental or physical health. What types of activities did they do, week in, week out, to ensure their minds were off the pandemic and more focused on learning, sport and the use of technology?