Mr. Michael Kelly:

On the point made about funding, one of the challenges, and I do not know if it is a common issue for everybody, is to figure out from which Department potential funding for programmes could come from. The work done by GIY could mean funding could come from the Department of Education, the Department of Health, the Department of Agriculture, Food and the Marine or the Department of Rural and Community Development. The silo thinking that tends to happen makes identifying a potential source of funding even more challenging.

I mentioned in my submission the school and food forum, which was set up. The forum was convened by Healthy Ireland and focused on food in schools as opposed to mental health. The forum was a brilliant example of a whole-of-government approach, as there were representatives of various Departments as well as NGOs like ourselves. The forum did fantastic work in bringing people together and making everybody aware of programmes and what is available. The forum ran aground a little because, beyond making people aware of what is going on, when it came to action and funding, it tended to back out into the different Departments. It is a common challenge for organisations like ourselves, which seek funding for particular things to decide where to go for funding. As Ms Connolly mentioned, the Department of Education is very reluctant to endorse a programme that it has not created itself, which, in turn, creates difficulties.