Dáil debates

Thursday, 26 October 2006

3:00 pm

Photo of Jimmy DeenihanJimmy Deenihan (Kerry North, Fine Gael)

I welcome the Minister's reply. I remind him that the 2005 report of the national task force on obesity contained a recommendation that children should have at least 60 minutes moderate physical activity daily. This and other recommendations of the report have not been acted upon. I conducted a survey of 1,400 schools in 2005 and found that only 23 had sports halls. Therefore, most schools are not in a position to provide physical education, especially in bad weather. Most principals who responded to my survey pointed out that the amount of time they could devote to physical education was weather-dependent.

There are approximately 300,000 overweight or obese children in Irish schools and this figure is increasing by 10,000 annually. While I understand that the Minister does not have sole responsibility for this, I ask him to ensure that priority be given to applications from schools which satisfy the criteria he has laid out. Under this, sports halls could be provided and children would have the opportunity to exercise in bad weather. The local community could also use the facilities by night. It is a simple solution and one that would resolve some of the problems in schools. It is there to be done under the sports capital programme because the Department of Education and Science certainly does not seem to prioritise the provision of sports halls in schools.

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