Richard Boyd Barrett (Dún Laoghaire, People Before Profit Alliance) | Oireachtas source

I predict this tax will have little or no impact on the consumption of sugary drinks. I do not believe imposing additional costs on products such as these will reduce consumption any more than I believed increasing the costs of bin collection would reduce waste output. What is needed are alternatives that enable people to recycle. If recycling is promoted and recycling infrastructure is provided, people are sensible enough to do the right thing. Much the same applies to the consumption of sugary drinks. We need to appeal to people's intelligence rather than hitting them in the pocket without explaining what we are doing.

Young people these days are very intelligent but they are battered with advertising which suggests these types of drinks are fun and will enhance their quality of life. They become addicted to these products as a result of advertising. Once they are addicted, it is difficult to wean themselves off these drinks. Consequently, I do not believe this tax will make much, if any, difference.

I also note there is no commitment to ring-fence the revenues from the tax for health promotion measures. I would give the measure some credence, although I would still disagree with it on the basis that a regressive tax is the wrong approach to the problem, if the Government gave a commitment to invest every single, solitary cent of revenue from the sugar tax in various forms of health promotion. This would include, as Deputy Paul Murphy stated, the banning of advertising of sugary drinks in sport, removing vending machines and ensuring sugary drinks are no longer sold in schools or where young people gather. Critically, it would involve resourcing physical education, not only in terms of hours, as Deputy Murphy suggested, but by addressing the lack of facilities for engaging in sport in schools in working-class areas.

The Minister may not be aware of it but some of his colleagues are certainly aware of a battle being fought with the Christian Brothers who plan to sell the playing fields of Clonkeen College. This school, which is in my local area, has a fantastic record and history in Gaelic football, soccer and so on. The sports fields it has used for years are being taken off them and despite appeal after appeal being made by parents, teachers, students and Deputies, the Minister for Education and Skills, Deputy Richard Bruton, will not lift a finger because, he says, the decision has nothing to do with him. This is a publicly funded school, yet the Minister is allowing the Christian Brothers to pay off debts incurred as a result of the abuse they inflicted on previous generations of children by taking playing fields off future generations of children who need them for sport.

The Government must resource and provide facilities at school level. Gyms are needed, as are education and health promotion initiatives to encourage people to engage in healthy activity and to see the folly of imagining that life would be made better by drinking sugar-filled drinks. As has been stated, these measures could be paid for by taxing some of the companies concerned but the Government never adopts that approach. Instead, it always chooses to hit people in the pocket. Any charge based on consumption inevitably hits the least well-off. The wealthy, who, incidentally, have access to playing fields and gyms and money to pay for all these types of activities, will not be hit by this tax. The Government is going about this in the wrong way and its sugar tax will not work. Notwithstanding my differences with him on this issue, if the Minister were serious about the tax, he would give a firm commitment here and now to ensure every cent generated by the tax will be used for health promotion of the type I have described.

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