Ms Ruth Buggie:

The Sutton school may have been one of our SECs. I am not familiar with the details of its grant application, but in light of the earlier work that Mr. O'Mahony mentioned, grant applications have to include more than one technology. A single-technology application to the grant programme would be challenging. That may be why it was unsuccessful. I am happy to look into the case and revert to the Deputy when we get the details.

Regarding outreach, a large part of what SECs do is try to engage their wider communities. Our communities typically come from the likes of local development committees and Tidy Towns groups, which are well used to outreach initiatives. In addition, the mentors that we have supporting the communities are specifically tasked with networking with all local community organisations and groups to make people aware of matters. Since we keep the mentors close within the local authority area, they are local to where the communities are active.

Further to outreach, we have a schools programme. We offer free workshops on climate change to schools - two levels within primary and also in junior cycle. We provide workshops for teachers as well. We are active in matters of outreach. We host a large number of events and participate in many events that our communities host.