Mr. Mike Neary:

We continue to look at the rewards to ensure they are effective and work. We do that on an ongoing basis. I wish to make another brief point about the funding. Currently, we use the Food Dudes programme to deliver the EU school fruit and vegetables scheme in Ireland. There are significant funds at EU level. Last year, 42% of the cost of the programme was provided through the European Union and 58% came from national funds. For example, all the fruit and vegetables delivered and provided to school children are 100% funded by the European Union. We are accessing that funding but also making sure that the programme we use it for is effective and delivers. That also allows us to cover more schools and more children and to build momentum around that.

The final point is about working with other groups. As part of our consultations on the programme we also liaise with the Department of Health and the Department of Education and Skills. When we review the programme each year we take views from that group. We are also working closely with Healthy Ireland initiatives in terms of trying to build up collaboration with that network. A number of these initiatives work together but more and more collaboration is starting to happen. However, there needs to be much more and obviously we must be part of that.