Michael Colreavy (Sligo-North Leitrim, Sinn Fein) | Oireachtas source

Deputy Ó Caoláin is taking Leader's Questions this morning and asked me to deputise for him. I must also apologise in advance on my own behalf because I will have to leave this meeting at 10.50 a.m. I will try to be brief as I note from the minutes of the last meeting that the Chairman was encouraging brevity.

I am surprised at the level of unanimity between the three presentations, although it is heartening and a good thing because a partnership approach is needed. We should be trying to design something that makes it easy for people to do the right thing and difficult for them to do the wrong thing. It is some time since we discussed the role of pricing for unhealthy food and drink versus pricing for the healthy alternatives. The food and drink industry spokesperson did not encourage that approach and has argued that it is a wealth measure and not a health measure and has pointed out that much work is being done by food production companies. The problem is, as the evidence from others proves, that what is happening at present is not working. We are not succeeding so we must examine what we are doing at present. We need to do more and we need to make sure we are doing the right thing.

I was surprised at the statement from the Irish Heart Foundation that it wants to study the proposal for taxing high-fat, high-salt and high-sugar foods and subsidising more healthy foods because I would have thought that it has been fairly well studied already. I also would have thought that there is a fair amount of political support for such a measure. Perhaps I misunderstood what the foundation was suggesting and if so, I ask for clarification.

There was no reference in the presentations to children playing computer games. It is my experience, and that of many other parents, that it is easy enough to get children away from television but once they are hooked on computer games, it can be extremely difficult to get them outdoors.