Department of health plan to prevent future health crisis

-Healthy eating in schools:

- Teachers obliged to allow one day for unhealthy food in lunch boxes but other four must be
comprised of healthy food.
-Teachers are recommended to set a example by leading healthy lifestyles.
-must allocate 10 classes of 1 hour in length a year to educate children in primary schools about
the importance of healthy eating.
-P.E. Increased to 2h per school week

-Department of finance will raise 8.4 billion approx. to tackle obesity.

-approx. 4 billion towards schools {dept of education}
-Training of teachers in healthy eating education
-construction of sport facilities in schools
-Set up breakfast clubs
-723 secondary schools
-3305 primary schools
-4028 Total
-€496524.33 per school (extensions and sports facilities)
-remainder goes to teacher education, PE teacher training, healthy food campaigns
and SPHE teachers so they can adequately assist students with health issues be it mental or
physical

sports clubs
-will receive 2.4 billion to expand numbers and hire coaches
-also will buy equipment
-allow for easy planning permission for expansion of sport clubs
-2200 GAA clubs
-look for number of other sport clubs*
Advertising:
1 billion to advertising
-tax on unhealthy food advertising to incentivise healthy food to advertise*
-advertise government plan to parents to involve them in sport in schools and clubs
-give grants to sport clubs to advertise to young people through social media

Mental health scheme

-1 billion to mental health to give obese people therapy and counselling
-A significant 62 per cent of Irish paediatricians who are members of the Royal College of
Paediatrics and Child Health (RCPCH) Ireland say they are treating more children in their clinic
who are overweight or obese than they did two years ago. This is a Obvious problem that must
be solved to relieve the strain on the health sector, and therapy and counselling is needed for
these people.
-Obesity is a complex and multifactorial disease that is influenced by physiological,
psychological, environmental, socio-economic and genetic factors.
-People with obesity have a 55% increased risk of developing depression over time, whereas
people with depression have a 58% increased risk of developing obesity.
Several studies have found that the effect of weight stigma on people with obesity may lead to
depression and a lower health-related quality of life. (Global.rethinkobesity.com)

-Rather than focus on the end result of obesity, look at the patient's underlying emotional health.
(Clinicaladvisor.com)This could massively impact how many obese people there are in Ireland.
Some people with obesity need to receive therapy before any kind of weight loss can occur, and
as therapy is so expensive and obese people are usually poorer, they cannot have access to
this without the state providing it.

In Conclusion
These steps if executed correctly would massively help to combat obesity in Ireland and
promote a healthier environment in all aspects of children's lives.

Ireland's future health crisis department of finance plan

In today's society and modern food industry Ireland's government services are constantly under
pressure to deliver the best protocols to prevent ill health such as the department of health to
deliver healthy eating guides, the department of education to adequately train teachers in the
health criteria, but most importantly the department of finance as we have to fund these at the
same time not cutting essential services from our citizens.

The sugar tax that was introduced in April 2018 is part of our 10 year plan that began in 2015,
the tax is projected to bring in €30 million for 2018 and €40 million for every year after that,
although over the 10 year lifespan of our action plan the expected revenue is €390 million, at
first glance this looks good as it can help our department incentivize schools to set up breakfast
clubs or put more funds towards the physical education in schools this money is minuscule and
by far does not outweigh the adult obesity costs alone per annum as they are astonishingly high
at €1.13 billion.(safefood 2012).

One of the suggested Department of Finances new policies to fund the department of healths
action plan is introducing a new bill of National Health Insurance (NHI).
The key features of this bill would be the following :

As an employee:
● You pay NHI contributions if you earn more than €162 a week.
● You pay 12% of your earnings above this limit and up to €892 a week.
● The rate drops to 2% of your earnings over €892 a week.
For example, if you earn €1000 a week, you pay:
 ● nothing on the first €162.
● 12% (€87.60) on the next €730.
● 2% (€2.16) on the next €108.
With that in mind there are over 2.5 million taxpayers in the Republic of Ireland and the average
Irish person earns €744.08 a week (CSO), so NHI tax would be projected to bring in a
staggering €8.4 billion to the Irish economy each year this money will primarily be used in the
funding of ireland's health action plan however after 5 years (estimated date for health to
improve) the national insurance tax rate will drop and the percentage is yet to be evaluated.
Missed healthcare appointments
Another issue that our healthcare system has faced over the years is missed hospital
appointments, approximately €22 million (according to the ‘Irish Examiner’) was wasted in the
health services due to this, it is a significant waste of resources which could have financed
1,000 clinical staff.

To combat this the department of finance has brought in a new fine for missed hospital
appointments unless proper documentation is supplied.
The fine would be €175 and with the 26000 missed appointments each year that would bring in
€4.5 million that would be used to hire 204 extra staff to Irish hospitals. It is estimated to crack
down on over three quarters of missed appointment.

Positive impacts
● Improved welfare of Irish citizens.
● There will be reduced health spend for the future which will be put towards Social
welfare, Agriculture, the national debt and Óglaigh na hÉireann as there is currently a
issue that 84.12% of serving personnel earn below the average public service
wage.(Department of Defence)
● And overall an improved quality of life for Irish people.
Negative impacts
● Increased taxation.
● Less spending money for people.
● There may be protest like we have seen before with the water charges in 2016.
● It will take time to achieve results .
● Opposition parties will attack us for our policies inevitably .

Our policies we believe will build the pathway for a young prospering Ireland to lead healthy,
productive and influential lives that will set examples for decades to come.

Department of finance 28/09/2018

An Roinn airgeadais
Minister of finance: Thomas O’Connor
Aire Airgeadais:

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