Patrick O'Donovan (Limerick, Fine Gael)

I thank the Minister for his reply. I do not believe this problem will be solved by the Department of Health alone. The Departments of Education and Skills; the Environment, Community and Local Government in terms of local authority housing location and infrastructure; and Transport, Tourism and Sport in terms of safe mobility, be it by foot or bicycle also have a role to play. Also, our national broadcaster has a role to play in regard to the times when advertisements for particular types of food are shown. Obviously it is in the advertiser's interest that these be shown when children are likely to be watching. The statistics on this are startling. It is estimated that 400,000 children in Ireland are currently obese. We cannot ignore that.

As a country that prides itself on being one of the world's finest food producers, I encourage the Minister and his Cabinet colleagues to engage, not alone with the food industry but with the games industry on this issue. The Minister referred earlier to the time children are spending in front of games consoles. While children will do this perhaps the games industry has an obligation to, through its games, encourage movement in children. There is one obvious game console on the market which encourages a lot of movement. There is an obligation on all of us to tackle this issue. If we bury our heads in the sand and pretend there is no problem, just as people did when they said smoking did not cause cancer, we will be only burying it for a future generation. We have an obligation to do more than we are currently doing.

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