Mary White (Fianna Fail)

I heartily congratulate Senator Eamonn Coghlan on the introduction of this motion. I assure everyone that Fianna Fáil will be 100% behind Senator Coghlan. I am delighted the Senator's family is present to witness his contribution to a debate in the important Upper House of the Oireachtas.

It was a Fianna Fáil Minister in 2007 who was the first Minister in the world to introduce a full smoking ban in public workplaces. I do not know whether many people are aware of what the then Minister did. He had the support of the Cabinet behind him but he drove the issue personally and said it was critical for our health that we have a national campaign encouraging people to give up smoking. I am sure there are many people here who joined in on that. The Minister met a great deal of resistance from our own Fianna Fáil people and from people throughout the country but he was on a mission to ban smoking in public areas and as I said was the first in the world to do that. Ireland has been emulated by many countries throughout the world and are a great example in that regard.

There is an opportunity now for the Minister for Health, Deputy Reilly, to lead the campaign to improve the physical health and, consequently, the mental health of our young people. The Minister quoted the Romans when he said that a healthy body is a healthy mind. In this case the Minister will get the Irish people behind him but he must get it on the radar, so to speak, that balanced nutrition and physical activity are critical for the physical and mental development of future generations.

It is estimated that currently 300,000 children in Ireland are either overweight or obese and, worryingly, our obesity rates do not appear to be slowing down. Constant media coverage and Government initiatives like the Obesity Task Force have resulted in an ever-increasing public awareness of the problem but the issue does not appear to be resolving. What can we do in that regard? From my participation in the previous Oireachtas I found it was very difficult to get the issue of obesity and physical activity on the radar. There are many organisations passionately doing their best but we must have a national driver, either the Minister or Senator Coghlan, to improve the physical and mental health of young Irish people.

First, we need to understand obesity and its health implications. People should be aware that many of the health risks associated with being overweight or obese are not visible, for example, too much fat in the blood and diabetes. Second, we must make parents more aware of their child's weight and what an overweight child looks like. One alarming statistic showed that one out of three parents of obese teenagers believes their child's weight is fine, and three out of four parents of overweight teenagers believe their child's weight is fine.

It is interesting that in any surveys done the awareness of the importance of a balanced diet and physical activity is very much to do with the economic status of parents. Until we introduced the smoking ban less well off people were not aware how destructive smoking was, and I am an ex-smoker. I gave up smoking 20 years ago, although I put on four stone and have not got rid of it yet. I am one of those people who say they will start exercising every day but I have not succeeded yet. I find it difficult to come up the stairs outside the Chamber.

We know it is good for our health to watch our diet and to exercise. We need to get onto the school curriculum that children should be commuting to school. The Minister or Senator Coghlan must get it into parents' heads that 30 minutes of exercise a day is required to keep the health standard high because as I said this morning there are dramatic improvements in life expectancy for people with breast cancer, colon cancer and non-Hodgkin lymphoma survival rates. There is an improvement of ten years life expectancy for people who get those diseases.

Fianna Fáil is a very much maligned party in this House but one of our great achievements was to introduce the smoking ban; it was the first in the world to do it.

The Minister should tackle this issue.

While doing a study on a new approach to ageing and ageism, I learned from speaking to consultant gerontologists that they all cycle to work which is amazing. Professor Rose Anne Kenny in Trinity College Dublin and Professor Des O'Neill cycle to work and carry their helmets to meetings. They know it is important to be physically active as one gets older.

I wish the Minister the best of luck. I am a fan of the Minister who made an excellent speech. Having been involved in the previous Joint Committee on Health and Children, he knows his brief. I look forward to Senator Eamonn Coghlan's proposals being delivered.