Pearse Doherty (Donegal South West, Sinn Fein)
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207. To ask the Minister for Finance to set out the partial and full year revenue that would be raised for the Exchequer by a 0.25%, 0.5%, 1%, 2%, 5%, and 10% sugar tax respectively on soft sugary drinks, as proposed by the Irish Heart Foundation. [31225/14]

Michael Noonan (Limerick City, Fine Gael)
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I am aware of the proposal by the Irish Heart Foundation (IHF) for a tax on sugar sweetened drinks.  While I am not opposed to such a measure in principle, I'm aware that little research has been done in relation to the efficacy or impact of such a measure or indeed how these taxes would be designed and levied.

When introducing any tax measure intended to alter people's behaviour, it is important to firstly to assess whether a tax measure is the most effective method of doing this or if better results could be achieved by other, non-fiscal, methods.  Secondly it is necessary to evaluate if such a measure have unintended consequences on other areas.

Therefore, I believe that before any such taxes could be seriously considered, further work is required in relation to the possible nature and design of such taxes.  Work is also needed to consider how such taxes would be implemented and collected, and an analysis of the impact of the proposal on employment, on the cost of living and cross border trade is also required.

I am aware that countries such as France, Finland and Hungary have sugar related taxes.  The French tax on sugar sweetened drinks introduced in January 2012 is particularly relevant to the IHF proposal.  I can assure the Deputy that I will be monitoring the impact of the French tax to see what lessons can be learned from an Irish point of view.

However, at this point and in the absence of more research,  I do not intend to speculate how much revenue would be raised by the tax rates proposed by the Deputy in his question.