Norma Foley (Kerry, Fianna Fail)
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On the point about staff upskilling and so on, it is a great richness of the Irish education system that we have so many staff who, once qualified, are prepared to continue to upskill and train in a variety of different fields. The Deputy mentioned the RSE programme as one example. To be clear, the counselling provision will be part of the wider well-being aspect in schools and the professional development service for teachers, PDST, will be rolling out continuing professional development, CPD, training to all schools in the area of well-being. It will not just be done in the schools that are specifically part of a pilot. The intention is that there will be an emphasis on wider well-being as well.

The Deputy is right that we are very fortunate to have the Minister of State, Deputy Byrne, join us in the Department. It is an excellent fit given his responsibility for sport in his other Department. On the education side, he will have a specific responsibility around physical activity in schools. He is very enthused about looking at how we can encourage a greater level of activity among pupils. Tremendous work is being done in schools on physical activity, including through the promotion of the active school flag initiative, the Slí na Sláinte programme and so on.

Regarding physical literacy, there is an opportunity as we move forward to support young people who might have greater challenges than others in this respect. With physical literacy, it is about the continuum rather than a particular stage. The emphasis in the Department has always been on a continuum of achievement in terms of physical literacy. We certainly will work carefully to ensure all issues around promoting physical activity and enhancing the ability of students in regard to physical literacy are improved and enhanced into the future. I appreciate the Deputy's specific interest in this issue.