Seán Crowe (Dublin South West, Sinn Fein) | Oireachtas source

There are all sorts of things we could talk about today regarding people not being able to cook so they are reliant on pizza and fast foods. People spoke about various offers available. I believe the action plan will be renewed shortly. Has the old action plan yielded tangible results? I will give an example. In 2018 the HSE reported to the committee on children similar obesity statistics to what we have today. Has the old action plan yielded the tangible results the Minister of State spoke about in this regard?

The Minister of State said the sugar tax is six years old. I remember raising the issue of a sugar tax when I first got elected in the early 2000s. I spoke about trying to get a ban on advertising sugary foods and various issues with regard to cartoons. I remember people looking at me as if I were mad at that time. This was in the early 2000s and it took us until 2018 to bring about the sugar tax. The sugar tax is only on fizzy drinks. Why is it not other products?

Have the representatives thought of that? Chocolate, which is a favourite of many of us, was mentioned. There is one well-known chocolate product and there used to be a difference between the product made in Britain and that made in Ireland. However, people are now saying that there is no difference and there is almost the same sugar content in them both. People’s tastebuds are being affected by this when they are younger. If a child starts off on particularly sugary foods, it is hard to get them off them. I do not know if anyone has tried to go off all sugar, but you go through withdrawals, you get headaches, etc. It therefore has a huge impact.

What initiatives are being proposed beyond the actual advertising campaign? The representatives said that the sugar tax made a difference, but could they outline to us in what way? Food education was touched on by many of our members here today. It is all very well and good to point to childhood obesity in disadvantaged areas, because that is where people eat less healthy food, which is more accessible, more affordable and it is often cheaper. That is the big challenge we are facing in society if it is cheaper. How do you say to a family in the middle of a cost-of-living crisis that they are buying the wrong food, particularly if that is all they can afford? As legislators, we can make foods cheaper and we can make the more harmful foods dearer.

That is why I came back to the issue of the sugar tax. All those years ago, people were very reluctant to do this. They said they would let the manufacturers change it and the industry change it, but we are still waiting for this. It has been nearly 20 years because we were talking about this in the early 2000s and it is now 2024. The changes are not happening, and we can see this every day. If we walk down the street and go into a school, we can see that children are getting bigger and bigger. The challenge for us, as legislators, is to do things differently. We were speaking about fast foods and where we can buy them. I suggest a simple step to the Minister of State and Safefood, although Safefood probably cannot comment on legislation, that we should not have sweets at a checkout. Parents would be ecstatic about that, because they have to run a gauntlet with a child screaming in their arms who is saying, “I want this, I want this”. It is the last chance to catch it. There is also the issue of the two-for-one deals on sweets, biscuits, etc., before you actually get to the till. I am outlining what is happening in my local shops, and I presume it is the same in the representatives' local shops. There is a greater responsibility on us, as legislators, to do things differently. Aside from the advertisement campaign, what does the Minister of State and his Department propose to do differently?