Bernard Durkan (Kildare North, Fine Gael) | Oireachtas source

I agree, and that is what I am trying to get at. It is to create that urgent awareness and the necessity to address the issue.

I will move on to something else. I know Ms O'Shea wants to come in as well, but I want to move into other areas. There is an urgent necessity to be more graphic in the extent to which junk food, sugar or saturated foods create a problem, because they do create a problem.

It is not putting anybody out of business or anything like that, but they have to shift their ingredients in a way that is meaningful. It might not be as acceptable to the tastebuds but will have a much more dramatic effect.

Another point concerns spot checks. We used to have spot checks for everybody in Leinster House every couple of years. For some reason, it faded out and it does not happen anymore. It was instrumental in detecting conditions in Members of the Houses and members of staff. Upwards of 1,000 people used to be tested, which was very effective and important. That is one for us to consider.

Mr. Macey mentioned the issue of air pollution. I am a student of air pollution and I used to put down questions about air pollution 25 years ago. That was a time when, if a bus took off from a bus stop, the people waiting at the bus stop would fall around coughing because there was so much pollution. You could see it for a mile and sometimes you could see a haze of smoke over the area from the diesel. That has stopped now so there must have been a dramatic reduction. I know the criteria have changed and what is pollution now would not have come up on the register 25 years ago.

Those of us who live in the countryside find ourselves challenged by being told that we can no longer burn wood in a wood stove. I am doubtful about that and would challenge it. If it is dry wood and people do not burn wet wood, it should not have any effect at all. I would like clarification on that, not for my own reasons but for the sake of everybody who lives in the countryside. There are still a good few people living in the countryside, even though we are a much-maligned group of people.