The Green Party has called for a tax on junk food and for free fruit and vegetables to be distributed to children at school.
The party's leader, Mr Trevor Sargent TD, said last night the consumption of junk food was "sentencing people to ill-health" and cost the Exchequer millions of euro every year.
Backing a proposal from the Irish Heart Foundation, he said that, as the Government argued that revenue from alcohol and tobacco taxes was necessary to help treat the damaging effects on the health of society, junk food should be taxed in the same way.
He said he was not proposing "a tax on treats" where children were concerned, as such food was almost a staple with many children.
"If it remained only a treat there would be no cause for concern," he said.
"Relying on processed foods which are especially high in fat and sugar is similar to over-consumption of alcohol in its long-term effects," he said.
Studies had shown that it led to the detection of early signs of heart disease in young children, he said.
Supporting a proposal from the Irish Heart Foundation that free fruit and vegetables be given to children at school, he said raw carrots or apples grown in Ireland, for example, would not only improve health but offer some level of meaningful support to Irish growers, organic or not, who faced bleak futures if they stayed in horticulture, with adverse weather conditions and unviably low prices from supermarkets for their produce.
He said radical measures were needed to restore a healthy lifestyle and diet to Irish people, especially children, who were storing up expensive health problems for themselves and the "crippled" health service in future years.
A recent World Health Organisation report ranked Ireland 36th of 47 countries where heart disease and general health were concerned. Heart disease kills 12,000 people a year, while a further 10,000 suffer strokes.
