Neasa Hourigan (Dublin Central, Green Party)
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257. To ask the Minister for Health his plans to alter regulations regarding nutritional labelling for foodstuffs in order that the recommended daily allowances information is expressed in terms of quantities for children as opposed to an adult’s RDA, for foodstuffs that are primarily targeted at children; and if he will make a statement on the matter. [23322/24]

Stephen Donnelly (Wicklow, Fianna Fail)
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This Department's role in legislating for nutritional information on food labelling involves contributing to the formation of policy at EU level. The central piece of EU legislation concerning food labelling is Regulation (EU) No.1169/2011 on the provision of food information to consumers (FIC). This Regulation provides for mandatory nutritional declaration on prepacked foods indicating the amounts of energy, fat, saturates, carbohydrates, protein, sugars and salt per 100g/100ml of the food product.

In addition to the above requirements food business operators may also present these details per portion size, if desired. However, portion-based labelling specifically targeted for adults or children is not mandatory under the current legal framework. Food business operators may give supplementary information on the amounts of vitamins, minerals, fibre, and types of fat in the food, if desired.

The current FIC Regulation is being revised to better inform consumers so they can make informed decisions in support of a healthy and sustainable diet and in support of a reduction in food waste. Proposed revisions include:

• Introduction of harmonised front-of-pack nutrition labelling (e.g. the UK’s multiple traffic light scheme);
• Setting of nutrient profiles to restrict use of health claims as a marketing tool for high fat, sugar and salt foods and restrict marketing of these foods to children;
• Expand the requirement for country of origin/provenance labelling (e.g. as currently applies to prepacked meat and foods with a single main ingredient) to additional food categories; (milk and milk used as an ingredient, meat used as an ingredient, rabbit and game meat, rice, durum wheat used in pasta, potatoes and tomato used in certain tomato products.)
• Revise the current date marking rules (“use by” and “best before”).

Additionally, the National Obesity Policy and Action Plan (OPAP) 2016-2025 states that the relevant parties will “Review EU consumer information labelling of food products and with a view to its application in the Irish market.” Under the OPAP, the Obesity Policy Implementation Oversight Group which is chaired by the Department of Health and consists of a number of key stakeholders including the Food Safety Authority of Ireland (FSAI), HSE, safefood and the Department of Agriculture, Food and the Marine, is progressing a wide range of policy initiatives and actions to address obesity, including labelling.

At the wider international level, in particular at WHO/FAO CODEX Alimentarius (International Food Standards) level, the Food Safety Authority of Ireland are leading work on providing nutrient reference values for labelling foods targeting infants and young children. Nutrient reference values are appropriate recommended daily allowances for vitamins, minerals, and protein for infants and young children. Once the nutrient reference values are established at Codex level, EU legislation governing labelling of foods targeting infants and young children is expected to align with the Codex standards.