Lucinda Creighton (Dublin South East, Fine Gael)
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Question 286: To ask the Minister for Health and Children if she will support the introduction of traffic light colour coding for food packaging to indicate the relative healthiness of the food product; and if she will make a statement on the matter. [3852/10]

Trevor Sargent (Dublin North, Green Party)
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The issue of the presentation of the mandatory nutrition declaration is currently being considered in the context of the EU proposal for a regulation on the provision of food information to consumers. This proposal was introduced in January 2008. Since then, it has been discussed at an EU working group, on which Ireland is represented by the Department of Health and Children and the Food Safety Authority of Ireland.

The proposal makes allowance for a mandatory nutrition declaration. This will compel the Food Business Operator to display the food's energy value, the amounts of fat, saturates, carbohydrates, sugars, proteins and salt. During the course of the working group's discussions, consideration has been given to the best way in which to present the declaration. Two of the main forms of presentation are Traffic Lights and Guideline Daily Amounts (GDAs). The former involves the use of red, yellow and green colours on the label to indicate if a product is healthy or not. The latter is a more detailed system, involving the display of the percentage of the consumer's Guideline Daily Amount contained in the food, for each of the main nutrients.

The group considers that it is difficult to determine a preference for one method of presentation over the other. While the proposal may not be finalised until late 2010 at the earliest, it seems likely that the group will recommend that both schemes of presentation should be permitted. Ireland considers this to be the best course of action.