Catherine Noone (Fine Gael) | Oireachtas source

It took a generation and a half, perhaps two, to reach this point. I was involved in a report produced by the British-Irish Parliamentary Assembly. We visited Amsterdam because the Netherlands was ahead of us in the sense that only one in five Dutch children was heading in the direction Irish children were heading. The big issue is patience and knowing that the problem will take time to fix. No more than with weight loss, unless one sees results, it takes great perseverance to continue.

On Dr. McCrory's recommendation that a national screening programme for body mass index, BMI, and weight be introduced, does free general practitioner care for children aged under six years not present a perfect opportunity to do it? Does Dr. McCrory have a sense that it is being done in the way it should among general practitioners? Perhaps he cannot answer that question. Are we adopting the typical Irish way of not wanting to face facts? General practitioners work hard and are often overworked. They do a great job and I do not want to be negative about them, but do they have the wherewithal in the current framework to assess a child properly at two or three junctures? Should we place an onus or responsibility on them to inform parents if their child is heading in a particular direction and that the problem needs to be sorted out?