Mr. Geoffrey Browne:

I will address a couple of points. Ultimately, the National Parents Council is not looking to move its responsibility on to other agencies but we advocate that there has to be a combined effort here from all the stakeholders. It has been mentioned that fewer children are walking and cycling to school and it is for obvious reasons. I come from in the countryside in Donegal and there are no cycle routes and there is much more traffic on the roads. It is not safe in many instances for children to walk or cycle to school.

On play at school, I almost lament back to my days in school. We got to play in school at break times and lunchtimes - we could climb trees and fall on one's hunkers. I understand because of the risk of litigation now why schools limit that type of activity. All we are doing, however, is creating an environment for our children where the visibility of and access to activities of a physical nature is being continually eroded. I will not start on the impact that gaming and electronic devices are have had on our young people.

I come to the question from Deputy Mitchell in respect of the weighing of children. We have not surveyed parents on this but before I give my answer I will refer back to a recent article in the Irish Independent. It was in my report but I did not read it out. The article was on how the Dutch are tackling childhood obesity. It refers to how one of the ways it is being approached is by having children screened by local government once a year. Their weight and height are measured confidentially. Bar the statistics, I do not really see any added benefit. It is almost akin to when a person goes to the doctor and he and or she is told that a few pounds could be lost. People realise that before they go into the doctor in the first place. It is the same perhaps with our children. We definitely would not advocate schools weighing children; perhaps health centres might, with professionals there who can issue good advice on healthy living habits to children and parents.

There was also a question on whether parents would attend informative education seminars on healthy living and eating. I believe they would but with the caveats that the training would need to be delivered by qualified dieticians and people in that area and also that the timing of training would not between 9 a.m. and 5 p.m., when most parents are either working or tied up in other activities. All too often we see these types of events geared towards - dare I say it - the people providing the information. It suits their timeframes rather than the intended audience.

I refer to fast food outlets. In Professor O'Shea's report, interestingly, he also noted that in areas of socio-economic disadvantage the ratio of healthy food outlets and supermarkets to fast food outlets is skewed towards the latter. We need to be mindful of the change in lifestyles and simple economics. It is often cheaper and more convenient to run to the local chipper. Parents are dropping kids off at 6 a.m. and 7 a.m., particularly in the cities, and maybe not getting home until 8. p.m. We can tackle that through education and maybe through work environments providing a better work-life balance for parents. We are not moving off our responsibilities as parents but society as a whole has to provide a mechanism where we can all work together. Ultimately, it suits society, government and everybody for us to have a healthier population. We would save on healthcare costs in future.