Maire Devine (Sinn Fein) | Oireachtas source

Sometimes I get a little fed up being here. We are not passing legislation. We are just making statements. We should spend our time introducing legislation, and legislation such as this is so important for our future, our young and their health - not just their physical health, but also their well-being.

I have to hand the A Healthy Weight for Ireland document. I have gone through it but it fails to set meaningful targets that would actually do something. It is much more positive on measures to tackle childhood obesity. Yes, we should reduce obesity levels - that is a given - but I am not confident the required measures are in this inspirational roadmap laid out for our children. I acknowledge the key actions grid towards the end of the document, but actions must be directed towards those groups which the report itself states are most at risk, such as those living in disadvantaged circumstances, as stated clearly on page 13. The Department of Health stated that there is currently no grant scheme to support community initiatives to promote healthy living initiatives. Strategies become dust-collectors on shelves unless one involves local communities and hands over to them the power to work on them and have ownership of them. Can this be done without adequate resourcing? That we should develop this whole-school approach to healthy living is a great sentiment but who will foot the bill? The teachers? No. The parents? Definitely not; they are overburdened.

However, we should not waste any time making this legislation. I offer a suggestion to the Minister of State. Action point 1.9 of her strategy seeks to develop proposals for a levy on sugar-sweetened drinks, while action 1.10 examines other fiscal measures to reduce unhealthy food consumption. Sinn Féin's pre-budget submission on a sugary drinks tax and the proposals we put forward in this regard came nearly a year ago. There should be a 5% sugar-sweetened drink tax, and the revenue from that tax should be reinvested to promote healthy lifestyles. The proposal was not about punishment or increasing the cost of such items for revenue creation, which would be felt, of course, mostly by those in lower-income families. Rather, it was about deterring certain behaviours and the consumption of these unhealthy drinks altogether. In an ideal Ireland, revenue from the sugary drinks tax would be extremely low because we would see children drinking water in our schools and homes.Yesterday, I visited my alma mater St. James's National School in Basin Lane, Dublin 8. It was the first to achieve the Early Focus project in this fairly disadvantaged area. They described the project to me as being about physical and mental well-being. They bring the children in and many of them may not have had breakfast. The project allows for breakfast and they are teaching the children to love water. It is difficult for a child, who has probably been brought up with the blackcurrant and orange squash and the fizzy stuff, to appreciate and love water. Once they do, they find themselves a lot more alert and more able to listen. They are more confident also. I recommend that the money we could save from sugary drinks to go into that sort of project and roll it out across primary schools. It has done wonders at the St. James's school and they have the achievement award to prove it. They are the first in the country to do so. I am immensely proud of them.

When we consider the resourcing, we could look at what is being done in Britain. Income from their sugar tax will be ring-fenced for school sports up to 2020, as well as being used to expand the numbers of breakfast clubs and to fund some schools. Perhaps the Minister of State could explain why she allowed the money that could be saved to run away from her. If we implement the school sports programmes and the healthy breakfast areas, it would result in positive changes in the trends for childhood obesity. One cannot increase the price of something without offering an alternative. With a choice between an unhealthy breakfast and nothing, one will stretch for the unhealthy option. If we really want children to eat better, we must reinvest the tax and offer them an alternative. We are not pioneering in this respect; there is precedent in Britain and in Mexico. Mexico had a higher rate of childhood obesity than the United States of America, which is astounding, and it passed a sugar tax that will be reinvested into health promotion. They recognise that the potential for economic harm from reduced junk food and soft drink sales is now insignificant compared to the damage that will be done in ten years if they did not invest in this way and if they allowed obesity to continue. One of their core reinvestments will be ensuring that every school has fresh drinking water for pupils. We have water in abundance here. If we make it more expensive to buy sugary drinks, we must reinvest to provide water. We must commit and pledge to provide fresh, clean, accessible drinking fountain in every school across the State. This type of proactive taxation and reinvestment is the only model that will work to tackle childhood obesity.

Unfortunately, the Minister for Finance, Deputy Noonan, has already decided that the sugar tax will be reinvested somewhere else when it is introduced next April. I do not know where that somewhere else is going to be. If we do reinvest the funds elsewhere, the tax that could have been saved, we might consider the ordinary families who struggle with their obese children and who try to find motivational coaches. There is a privatisation of that sort or agency that takes their money and tells them they will take the weight off their child or teen. If we really want to tackle obesity, we need to generate a revenue to streamline it directly into dealing with it. If we tax the 5%, we have something to reinvest in promoting healthy living for children. The WHO report was published today and it is quite astounding. Some 200,000 adolescents and children worldwide were asked about their lifestyle in questionnaires. The report shows the amount of time they spend in front of a screen, the amount of time they do not engage socially and the time that they do not exercise their bodies and their brains. They do not get to use their imaginations in playgrounds, chatting to their pals or making up games when time is spent on one screen and when that is their view while buried in that screen. It is quite alarming.

Perhaps the Minister of State will also comment on what was described earlier during the Oireachtas Joint Committee on Transport, Tourism and Sport. The committee heard that a large meal could be as dangerous as the impact of alcohol on driving.