Feargal Quinn (Independent)

I welcome the Minister and the words he used, particularly the word "leadership". As Senators Ormonde, Ulick Burke and others have said, the answer to this problem is in our own hands to a large extent. This is not something we can pass laws on, it is something we can deal with ourselves.

As an operator of supermarkets, I have known about this problem for years. I am on the board of the Food Marketing Institute in the United States and the board regularly meets the Grocery Manufacturers Association of America. Both those bodies have identified business opportunities in this issue because the sense of concern among parents is growing. There is a business opportunity in another sense because of the fear of what may happen in the future. It is not too long ago that people smoked without thinking twice about it, or at least those who sold cigarettes did not consider their responsibilities. Governments around the world started to tackle the smoking problem and now tobacco companies are fearful of litigation. Likewise, those in the food industry, particularly in the US, are worried about class action activity that could result in both producers and sellers of food being sued. There is a business opportunity for those who identify and then address the concerns of customers. Supermarkets and restaurants in the US and elsewhere have recognised this business opportunity and are also afraid of being sued.

I hope the report of the national task force on obesity will become a spur to action, not simply a talking point that fades away after a few weeks. The report addresses the fundamental question of what quality of life we choose for ourselves and our children. Of all the comments I have heard and read since the report's publication, what resonated most was what Senator Ormonde said, namely that parents are crucial. Parents have a huge amount of control over what their children and families eat. That has changed in recent times because of a new factor in parenthood, whereby both parents are working. This means they are cash-rich and time-poor. The limited time available to parents means that the speed with which they can produce meals takes precedence over any other concerns.

The answer is not just in parents' hands, it is in everyone's hands. I love Hallowe'en and my wife and I invariably stay at home at Hallowe'en, waiting for the children to call. In recent years we have found that our apples and nuts are not welcomed by the children. Children do not call looking for apples and nuts anymore. We have been very naughty as a result and now make sure that there are plenty of sweets available. As adults, we should behave better and should recognise that we have a responsibility to behave differently.

Let me tell the story of something that happened in my company some 25 years ago. A customer came to me and asked me if I had ever shopped with three-year old twin boys. When I replied that I had not, she told me that she took a Valium every day, but that on Tuesdays when she went shopping with her twins she took three because shopping was just hell, particularly when they got to the check-outs. She was trying to keep them away from sweets, but all supermarkets displayed sweets at the check-outs.

We removed sweets from the check-out area then, which was easy to do 25 years ago. I had a row with the accountants at the time because they thought I did not realise how much such a move was costing me. The reason we made the change was to ensure customers would have a better shopping experience and that they would come back to us, even if it did hurt immediate profits. Even at that stage, customers identified that they were unhappy feeding unhealthy treats to their children. This phenomenon is not new. It was clear to me that the decision I made was a good long-term rather than short-term business decision; parents said they liked going to my supermarket because they did not get sweets at the check-outs and, therefore, had less hassle. It seems the answer is in our own hands, whether we are parents, in business or ordinary citizens.

Members will no doubt be delighted to hear that I do not agree with the argument that we should pass laws to do something about obesity. The answer is in the hands of citizens. Therefore, I was pleased to hear the Minister of State talk about leadership and doing something about it on that basis. We have a job of selling the health reasons to curb obesity to the public. The task force report and this debate will help sell those reasons for us. It is up to the Government to sell the health reasons to the people rather than to pass laws.

When the situation is pointed out to citizens, they will put their children before the benefit of fast unhealthy foods. We must continue to invest in the message to parents that their children's diet is vitally important to their future and that of their children's children, because I am sure good health is inherited in some way. If we can convince parents of that, they will make the extra effort to feed their children a healthier diet.

The other side of the obesity coin has to do with exercise, or rather, the lack of exercise. Our change in lifestyle has produced some detrimental results. There was a time when most of our children walked or cycled to school. Now, for a variety of good reasons, most children are driven to school. That change has made a tremendous difference to the quality of physical exercise children get. I was delighted to see there are now "pedestrian buses" in some areas, where children hold hands and walk to school in a supervised group. That is a great answer to encourage people unwilling to risk the walk to school alone to take exercise.

A change that could make a tremendous difference is quality physical exercise for young people. I was involved with the leaving certificate applied programme for some years. One of my priorities was to get more attention paid to physical education and to ensure sports were part of the curriculum. I had two reasons for this. First, I believe the fitter one's body is, the fitter one's mind will be. Second, sport and physical activity often offer children a way of excelling. That success can give them confidence in other areas and spills over into other aspects of their lives. When I entered the leaving certificate arena with those ideas, I was shocked to find how badly equipped were the majority of secondary schools. In most secondary schools today physical education is a joke. It was, therefore, no great surprise to me to hear last week that the situation in primary schools is just as bad, if not worse.

I share the amazement of the Minister for Education and Science at the stories of young children not being allowed to run in school playgrounds at break time because of the fear that they will be injured and compensation claims will be made against the school. Like the diets of the children, this is a situation that has been allowed to come about because we did not fully understand the consequence of what we were doing. Since the publication of the report of the task force on obesity, we can no longer make that claim. If we allow these problems to persist, we have nobody to blame but ourselves. We can no longer say we did not know about them. The writing is clearly on the wall for everybody to see. The only question is whether we will read it and take the necessary action to do something about it.

I am delighted we are having this debate today. What has been said will be useful, in particular the Minister of State's words on leadership. The task is for us to ensure we spread the message far and wide with the determination to ensure it is understood by everybody concerned. I welcome the debate and the Minister of State's comments. His heart is in it and if we all grab the opportunity, we will be able to make a difference.