Garvey says children are overweight due to being ‘driven everywhere’

Many Irish children are overweight “because they have to be driven everywhere”, the Green Party deputy leader has said.

Roisin Garvey made the comments at the Green Party think-in in Dublin, where she said there was a need to expand the “space given to children who are trying to get to school safely”.

She said: “Cars are king at the moment in this country and that’s still a huge issue.”

Ms Garvey said she personally relied on cars in rural areas but added: “In urban areas, it is insane that we still have kids being driven to school from across the road.

“We need pedestrian crossings, we need wider footpaths.”

Speaking on Monday, she added: “We need to take it seriously: A quarter of our nine-year-olds are overweight, that’s because they have to be driven everywhere.

“We have to take this seriously and give space back to our children, and back to older people who can’t always drive and people with disabilities.”

Ms Garvey, who highlighted recent changes to traffic management in Dublin city centre as examples of schemes that work, said: “We’ve seen it as best practice in other countries.

“Let’s just do it here and modernise our country and not be stuck back in the 80s where we think everyone should drive a car everywhere, it’s insane.”

However, Finance Minister Jack Chambers urged caution over the remarks.

The senior Fianna Fail deputy leader said: “I think we need to be careful not to simplify or make conclusions on the basis of basically just people being driven to school.

“We want to build a more active society in everything we do as a country, and every policy we make whether that is investing in sport, whether that is supporting rural transport, for example, and we have fully embraced active travel, where we’ve enabled a lot of young people to walk and cycle to school.”

Mr Chambers added: “We also have a society now where fast food, for example, is an issue in terms of daily eating habits, but it’s much more complex than specifically focusing on one policy area.

“We need to build a more active society with healthy eating. Free school meals, for example, (offers) a space where nutrition can be discussed in a school environment, and we need to be careful not to overly simplify what is a complex issue.”

The Education Minister also defended a “very strong wellbeing policy” in Irish schools.

Speaking at the Fianna Fail think-in, Education Minister Norma Foley said: “Our schools are doing great work in that respect in terms of encouraging health and wellbeing.”

Asked if Ms Garvey had a point, Ms Foley said there are a “lot of issues” which might impact a young person, adding that children are being encouraged to walk and cycle to school.

Ms Garvey’s remarks came after a question to Green Party leader Roderic O’Gorman on whether the School Transport Scheme should be expanded.

Primary school pupils must be 3.2 kilometres away from a suitable school while post-primary students must be 4.8 kilometres away.

Currently, the fee for a primary school child is 50 euros and 75 euros for a post-primary school child.

The maximum fee for a family is 125 euros.

Mr O’Gorman said the expansion of the scope of the school-transport programme “would be really welcome”, adding: “It has an environmental benefit, it has a cost-saving benefit and it has a time-saving benefit for so many families.”

He said the maximum fee had been lowered through the term of the Government and added: “I know Norma Foley and the Department are working hard to make sure we can provide this service to everybody who wants to take it up.”