Dr. Mary Flynn:

I thank the Chairman and members of the committee and I thank Deputy Fitzpatrick for his comments on our leaflet. I reassure him that this leaflet has gone out from the Food Safety Authority of Ireland to all general practitioners, dieticians and all practice nurses. It is a guide for health professionals. Unfortunately, when the people read the information in the booklets and then try to buy food, problems arise. Often there are problems with portion sizes. In most cases one muffin would do for a family of five and it should be divided up in that way. This is where calorie posting comes in. We know what occurred in the United States: Kentucky Fried Chicken introduced grilled chicken for the first time on the back of calorie posting. We know that outlets selling cakes and biscuits have begun to reduce or introduce portion sizes with which we were all familiar in the 1970s. However, when we show them to people, they think we are referring to portions for children. They think a certain bottle of Coke is a dinky. We are used to portion sizes that have doubled and trebled. This has been highlighted in the booklet.

At the moment, because of the recession, food service outlets are hanging on by their fingernails. We know this is a reality. People running restaurants are not taking salaries and unemployment is affecting people severely in this area as well as in the construction area. How do we do it? Legislation was introduced in New York and consideration is being given to rolling out the legislation throughout the USA. They have suggested that the proposal of making calorie posting mandatory should apply to outlets with 20 or more branches and it would be cost-effective to do so. If one goes to the trouble of analysing recipes and standardising portion sizes, one could spread it among 20 outlets, and that is a good idea. At the moment in Ireland this is done on a voluntary basis. I thank the Minister for Health for highlighting the problem. There were outlets operating here which had posted calories in their outlets in other jurisdictions but were not doing so here. As a result of the intervention, we have had a change overnight, and that is welcome.

I am a dietician but I did not know that there were 1,200 calories in a big box of popcorn that one might buy at the cinema. Such a box contains the equivalent of seven bags of popcorn. Something strange happens to humans. When we are given such food in a box, we eat it and then we go home and decide that we only had popcorn and that we will still eat a dinner. However, somehow if we open bags of popcorn and begin to eat them, we stop after three bags and we would probably decide that we did not need dinner. We need these stops.

The most wonderful thing about calorie posting was the reaction from the population to the whole initiative. From a total of more than 3,000 consumers, some 96% responded. The Food Safety Authority of Ireland was overwhelmed by the reaction to the public consultation. It was the biggest reaction we ever had. I could not believe it but 96% of consumers suggested putting calories on everything in all outlets because they wanted to know. That was the first time we saw such a reaction. It was not from the top down or from the authority trying to do certain things but from the bottom up and it involved people who are overweight.

No one wants to be overweight and they all want a solution. I have worked in Canada, the Middle East, Britain and for most of my life in Ireland, and I have never met anyone who wants to be overweight. Everyone wants a solution. Deputy Colreavy is absolutely right about the need to make the healthy option the easy option. We need a partnership with the food and drink organisations. I have never met anyone in the food and drink organisations who has wanted to make anyone obese. They want to make a fast buck and a profit. It is about setting up a framework such that we all get to where we want to be.