Patrick O'Donovan (Limerick, Fine Gael) | Oireachtas source

I thank the Minister of State for his reply. I welcome the fact that so many schools are in the pipeline for ASF awards, but it is not just a question of activity levels. It is also a question of what we ingest. For example, while I was teaching, a colleague told me of how he found a packet of digestive biscuits and butter when the lunch box of a child in his classroom was opened. When he met the child's mother subsequently, it was through no fault of her own that she pointed out that she had not given her child chocolate digestives.

There is a significant awareness problem. There is also a generational problem. RTE's "The John Murray Show" and others are doing fantastic work, but this is January. Not too many people discuss "Operation Transformation" in June or July. The issue falls off the list of national priorities until we start discussing it again after Christmas. As I stated at the weekend, people will rush out to buy bicycles, runners and so on and will tear around the country for a couple of weeks before reverting to their old habits in February.

We need to change people's behaviour. We can only do so by making the appropriate intervention at a young age. In every house that is home to a child whose primary school is actively engaged with the green flag initiative, parents will have drummed into them the message of recycling, separating waste, composting, energy efficiency, water usage and a clatter of other issues. The same needs to apply in this case. We must make a more concerted intervention. It is already being done in schools, as the Minister of State outlined, but we need to pull it all together. We need to encourage people to recognise that what they are ingesting, combined with their physical output, will have a significant effect.

This problem costs the Exchequer €4 billion per year in the form of the HSE's budget for obesity related illnesses. The situation will only worsen at a time when we cannot even afford basic services. This intervention might cost a few euro, but whatever we can draw out of it and whatever behaviours we can change will bear fruit.

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