The Irish Heart Foundation welcomes the opportunity to discuss chapter 15 of the report of the Commission on Taxation and Welfare. We also welcome the commission's strong backing for the use of taxation as a lever to improve public health in Ireland. In particular, we support its recommendation to help tackle Ireland's obesity crisis through additional fiscal measures to incentivise reformulation of unhealthy foods. This is the focus of our statement, although taxation continues to play a critical role in tobacco control and alcohol policy.
The outlook in Ireland in relation to childhood obesity is truly horrific. Before the pandemic, State-funded research estimated it will cause the premature death of one in every 20 of this generation of children. We had evidence of children as young as eight presenting with high blood pressure in large numbers and teenagers with a cardiovascular age into the 60s. Things are even worse now. Consumption of unhealthy food rose sharply during the pandemic, while physical activity levels plummeted. We do not yet know the full impact of the pandemic but in the UK there have been record increases in obesity levels among primary schoolchildren that experts believe have been mirrored here.
Obesity is a complex problem with a vast array of causes. Fiscal measures are not a solution in isolation but are an important part of a larger portfolio of policy measures, particularly when designed with public health in mind, such as the sugar sweetened drinks tax, or combined with complementary interventions, such as fruit and vegetable subsidies.
Balancing taxation with subsidies is vital against a backdrop of likely long-term cost-of-living pressures and what the commission describes as a health equity gradient, whereby obesity rates are much greater in disadvantaged communities. We also know that disparities in these rates are continuing to widen, particularly among older primary school children in Ireland.
Affordable healthy diets are out of the reach of many families, a fact borne out by Food Safety Authority of Ireland, FSAI, research showing that healthy calories from, say, fruit or lean meat cost up to ten times more than unhealthy calories from products such as processed meats. The positive impact of tax measures could be magnified and any regressive impacts minimised by using the receipts in targeted ways. For example, since the introduction of the sugar-sweetened drinks tax, the IHF has called for its proceeds to be used to provide all children with access to a healthy diet through a children's future fund.
The facts demonstrate that the extension of the sugar-sweetened drinks tax is likely to have a powerful impact in combating obesity. Our tax in Ireland was based on the UK's soft drinks industry levy, and given that our beverage markets are integrated, similar effects are highly likely. Within a year of the introduction of the levy in the UK, the total sugar sold in soft drinks decreased by 35.4%. More than 45,000 tonnes of sugar was removed from sale, and there was a reduction of 6,500 in calorie intake per annum per UK resident. Due to a massive shift in sales to low- and no-sugar drinks, the industry's long-term profitability was not harmed.
This represents significant impact but it would be dwarfed by the ultra-processed food tax recommended by the commission, given that such products account for almost half the contents of Irish shopping baskets, 46%, or a comprehensive sugar tax such as that now proposed in the UK. Such measures would have a massive potential to reduce the national waistline if designed correctly, with no long-term impact on industry profitability or costs to consumers.
We need be clear, though: what we need are mandatory interventions incentivising reformulation. Voluntary programmes have failed miserably. As the commission notes, they can also delay more substantive strategies and can be used by industry to divert policy away from mandatory measures. This is backed up by research, such as a study showing an increase in sugar in chocolate confectionery of 23% since 1992.
The commission's rationale for taxation on unhealthy food is clear. It is underpinned by statistics showing that, for example, sugar intake among three-year-old children in Ireland is 250% above recommended levels, fat intake among five- to 12-year-olds 40% higher and salt intake among four-to-six-year-olds two thirds higher than the daily guidelines.
We know that the Department of Finance has been interested in examining this area for some time. It is unable to move, however, until the Department of Health concludes its evaluation of the sugar-sweetened drinks tax on the Irish soft drinks market.
We are now less than two weeks away from the fifth anniversary of the introduction of the sugar-sweetened drinks tax here. The UK levy was introduced three weeks earlier than ours, but the evidence of impact there was first published by Public Health England more than three and a half years ago, and further research has been published since. It is not acceptable that a report so crucial, we believe, to the nation's health has been delayed so long. In the past day or so, a reply to a parliamentary question indicated that the Department intends to have the evaluation finalised in the second half of this year. If I may ask members for one thing this evening, it is to keep the Department to its word, not only to have the evaluation finalised but to have it published in 2023. We are abjectly losing the war on obesity, particularly in respect of our children, and the consequences for their future health are dire. It is just not acceptable that we are failing to make proper and timely use of one of the most powerful policy weapons at our disposal.
