David Cullinane (Waterford, Sinn Fein) | Oireachtas source

Sinn Féin will oppose the amendment. While speaking on the issue, I am deeply conscious that I am filling in for Teachta Doherty, who has gone out for his tea. Most likely, he is having beans, chips and a can of Coke. He is one of those people who should be in the Chamber to listen to this. He is one of those people who likes soft drinks but still supports the principle of the tax.

This is not a new idea; it has been around for a long time. It has been examined by different sectoral committees, including the Joint Committee on Health. I am not convinced by the arguments of the previous speaker that this is somehow a tax on the poor or the working class or anything like that. It should never be a case of either-or. My party supports higher taxes on wealth and higher incomes. We support effective corporation taxes and so forth. It is not the case that someone could on the one hand support this but not be in favour of progressive taxation on the other hand.

Incidentally, we had a proposal to include a sugar tax in our alternative budget. While I am putting this question to the Minister, I am conscious that we would use associated revenue to spend generally across all services, albeit we proposed an increase in health spending. When people see new taxes like this introduced, they need assurance. We can win the support of the public if they see that the money is actually used for practical purposes. Given that this tax is being sold on the basis of encouraging people's behaviour and so on, will the Minister give consideration to ring-fencing money raised from the sugar tax for the issues about which we have spoken, including the promotion of healthy living, illness prevention, primary care and so on? Can that link be demonstrated? We must try to win support for these types of taxes. People need to see that the money is actually being used rather than simply going into a black hole. We need to ensure that we invest in comprehensive holistic primary care and so on. The Minister might outline his intentions to ring-fence, if at all.

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