Mr. Chris Macey:

I think it is the Department of Communications, Climate Action and Environment. I am not 100% sure but I can provide that information later.

Healthy vending does not work as long as there is unhealthy vending. If a child has a choice between an apple and a Mars bar, the child will always take the Mars bar. There was a proposal at one stage to have a 60:40 ratio of healthy and other vending. That is a recipe for making it look like healthy vending does not work because the Mars bar would be eaten and the apple would be left. When one takes the Mars bar away the apple will be eaten.

There is a company in Ennis called the School Food Company that is going into schools fired with some great thinking around nutrition for children. It is a private organisation but it is doing great work. First, they state all the junk has to leave the school because they cannot compete with it with healthy food. Second, schools need to have a canteen. It is exactly as Deputy Mitchell stated that there needs to be a place for children to sit down, have a proper meal and eat in some form of comfort. They put in a kitchen and they make sure that there is space for children to sit and eat the food. This company, the last I heard, had moved beyond Ennis and had 20 or 25 schools around the country. It is a tremendous initiative and it appears to be working well.

In terms of the voluntary code, I stated in my statement that voluntary codes have been shown around the world not to work because it is not in the interests of the companies to implement them. By their nature, they have to do as little as they can get away with. The multinational processed food sector is in the business of making money. That is what their executives are paid for. They are not in the business of public health. Therefore, they are not in the business of the responses that we need to put in place to protect public health. That has to be up to the State and it has to be regulation.

Under voluntary codes, companies do not have to do anything. If they sign up and do not do it, there are remedies to that. On the other side of it, companies that are trying to do the right thing - there are such companies out there as the food sector in Ireland is multifaceted and there are some great companies doing great things - are at a competitive disadvantage against companies that are flouting the voluntary code. We would say only the legal level playing field of regulation can work. Then everyone is on the same basis.