Dáil Éireann Debate, Tuesday - 22 February 2022
749. Deputy Louise O'Reilly asked the Minister for Health the progress that has been made on the action in the Healthy Ireland Strategic Action Plan 2021-2025 to progress implementation of the commitment to use planning to address the obesogenic environment; the plans that are in place for 2022 for same; and if he will make a statement on the matter. [9357/22]
View answerThe Healthy Ireland Strategic Action Plan 2021-2025 was published in May 2021 by Minister Stephen Donnelly and myself, following an extensive stakeholder consultation process. The Healthy Ireland Strategic Action Plan builds on the success of the Healthy Ireland Framework, which was published in 2013. The Action Plan contains 56 strategic actions across six themes which will be implemented over the lifetime of the plan. It takes a "whole of government" and "whole of society" approach, and each action has a lead government department from across fourteen separate government departments.
One of the strategic actions under Theme 2, "Partnerships and Cross-Sectoral Work", is to "Engage and collaborate with the Department of Housing, Local Government and Heritage to align policy and initiatives with Healthy Ireland policy ". The Department of Housing, Local Government and Heritage (DHLGH) is represented on both the Obesity Policy Implementation Oversight Group and the National Physical Activity Plan Implementation Group (NPAP IG). The Department of Health also collaborates with DHLGH in other fora, such as the Town Centre First interdepartmental advisory group.
An Implementation Action under the strategic action referred to above is "Implementation of the commitment to use planning to address the obesogenic environment ". Due to other priorities, progress has not been made in this area since the publication of the Strategic Action Plan. In 2022, the Department will work with the lead Department, DHLGH, and other stakeholders to progress work in this complex area.
