Fergal Browne (Fine Gael)

The Government has a clear role in advertising and explaining the health risks of obesity, including diabetes, heart disease, increased levels of prostate cancer and problems with knees and hips because of the extra weight. It must also allocate funding to primary and secondary schools to promote sports at every opportunity.

The Government must also ensure that people are properly educated in terms of the food types and the amount of food they need, otherwise they will unknowingly continue to eat the wrong types of food. We are all aware of the enormous success of Weight Watchers here and also the book, You Are What You Eat. That is proof that members of the public want to know about the types of food they should eat but unfortunately, with our modern lifestyle, we tend to rush around far more than was the case in the past. We do not eat at home as often as we should and we are eating more processed food, although we can counteract that by informing the public of the type of foods they should eat.

I am not promoting a nanny state or that we should advise the public on every aspect of their lives but we can take realistic steps, such as the provision of PE halls in schools, to address the problem of obesity. The Minister of State comes from a very sporting county, Kildare, but while canvassing in the new housing estates in the recent by-election the one demand made to me was for better facilities, including parks. I was amazed to learn that Maynooth does not have a park. I am not sure about the position in Leixlip and Celbridge. Unfortunately, we have not matched the development in those towns, which became huge urban areas almost overnight because of the economic boom, with proper recreational facilities. That is an area in which we as politicians can and should get involved. The INTO's contribution is sensible. We cannot blame it all on schools but the obvious answer is to blame them for every problem and suggest they run courses on topics such as driving instruction. The reality is that schools have a fixed number of hours each day, and while the curriculum in every school has been increased substantially over the past few years I have never heard anyone suggest reducing the time given to a subject. All schools can do is promote good practice and we should give them every opportunity and resource to enable them to promote a healthy lifestyle and teach PE successfully.

We should learn from the smoking ban. The money we will save in the future due to having fewer smokers in hospitals should be invested in preventing problems arising from obesity in ten or 15 years time.