Mr. Trevor White:

With respect, Chairman, the organisation is well aware that I can substantiate that claim. It sounds so cuddly, warm and uncontroversial until one begins to look a little deeper. The Nutrition and Health Foundation claims to put the interests of consumers before everything else, yet it cares so much about Irish consumers that it will not let them join. I know this because I tried to join the Nutrition and Health Foundation. After seven months of equivocation, my application was flatly rejected.

Option two is to ask industry to be nicer, to reveal the damage they are doing to children, beg them to go easy on the fats, salt and sugar. Sadly this policy has proved futile for nearly 30 years and in that time the incidence of childhood obesity has shot up alongside high blood pressure, heart disease, type two diabetes, stroke and certain forms of cancer. Why? Quite simply because corporations put short-term profit before all other concerns.

The third option is that the legislators can intervene, that is the Members can convince the Minister for Health to introduce the legislation that will tackle this problem and thus secure a place in history. This is not just an Irish issue, this is a problem throughout the developed world. There is a profound need for leadership on obesity and the actions of members could have wide reaching consequences.

Politicians provided leadership when they introduced a tax on plastic bags and banned smoking in the workplace. That is the kind of influence that politicians could exercise with regard to the issue of obesity.

It is heartening to note that the committee has taken submissions from good people. I particularly applaud the recommendations of the Irish Heart Foundation for a tax on sugar-sweetened beverages which would increase the price of such products. Such a tax should be at least 20%, not the rate of 10% mooted in the media last Tuesday. In my view the Irish Heart Foundation is being moderate in asking for an advertising ban from 6 a.m. to 9 p.m. I would go further. I agree with Deputy Dowds that we must ban the advertising to children of all unhealthy foods.

I note this week's decision by the Danish Government to abandon taxes aimed at curbing obesity. The lesson from that experience seems to be that it is much easier to tax specific foods, such as a tax on sugary sodas, than to tax at the nutrient level with a fat or sugar tax. I have in mind softer interventions such as the ban on large sugary drinks introduced by the mayor of New York, Michael Bloomberg.

If this were a truly civilised society, our children would never be exposed to advertisements for products that would make them sick. There would be a traffic-light coding system on the front of packs; we would make schools healthier, more protected environments; we would impose a levy on sugar-sweetened drinks; and we would also promote physical activity. Supermarkets would be redesigned to give less prominence to foods that are high in fat, sugar and salt - what we euphemistically call the obesogenic environment. Internet and outdoor marketing in the retail sector treats children with contempt by cynically exploiting their intellectual immaturity. It is, frankly, morally despicable.

This committee has an opportunity to exercise the sort of leadership that separates statesmen from politicians. In doing so, its members will earn the respect and gratitude of Irish men and women who are only now beginning their lives and of children as yet unborn. However, if our politicians continue to fail to address this crisis or if their proposals are shelved or watered down because of the demands of the industry, the opposite will be true. History will judge them most unkindly. On behalf of my boys and of children throughout the country I ask members of this committee to show the world what leadership really looks like.