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This article was originally published in August 2016, and was updated on 10 October 2017 following the announcement of a sugar tax in Budget 2018. It has again been updated on 11 April 2018 ahead of the introduction of the sugar tax to Ireland on 1 May.
THE GOVERNMENT HAS vowed that on 1 May, it will introduce its levy on drinks which contain a significant amount of sugar.
The so-called “sugar tax”, which was announced in last year’s Budget and had been well-flagged in advance, means consumers will pay 30 cent per litre on drinks which have more than 8 grams of sugar per 100 millilitres. It had been due to kick in April but had to be delayed until the government could finalise discussions with the EC to make sure it did not infringe on EU State aid law.
The UK, which is not subject to the same restrictions, introduced its sugary drinks levy on 6 April as past of its anti-obesity policy. Norway introduced a tax on sugary foods and drinks on 1 January with the stated aims of both aiming to cut sugar intake in its population but also to raise revenues through a steep tax (of up to 83% on some products).
Ahead of last year’s Budget announcement, the Irish Beverage Council had called on the government not to go ahead with the levy. In a paper on the subject, the group wrote:
International evidence shows that additional taxation on sugar-sweetened drinks does not achieve the public health objectives of reducing incidence of obesity, overweight and related illnesses.
In an interview on The Last Word on Today FM in 2016, the Council’s director Kevin McPartlan claimed:
It’s been proven not to reduce consumption of soft drinks, and therefore not to reduce consumption of sugar.
On the same show, the Irish Heart Foundation’s Cliona Loughnane claimed research had shown that the tax has cut consumption of sugary drinks in Mexico and France.
Welcome to one of the most hotly-contested debates in public health and fiscal policy around. With the sugar tax now set to be introduced here in Ireland, we’ve decided to take a stab at answering the question: has it worked elsewhere in having a positive impact on consumer health?
(Remember, if you hear a big debate you’d like settled, email factcheck@thejournal.ie or tweet @TJ_FactCheck and we’ll do our best).
Claim: Taxes on sugary drinks have not achieved their public health aims
Verdict: Mostly TRUE
For this FactCheck, we’re focusing on the public health rationale behind a tax on sugary drinks, and setting aside the revenue-raising component.
The public health logic of a tax on sugary drinks is simple: raising taxes lifts prices which lowers consumption and therefore the intake of calories, which positively impacts on obesity, diabetes and other public health problems.
We’ve gathered as much evidence as possible about some of the main experiments with the taxes, and attempted to answer two questions:
Have they lowered consumption? And have they had a positive impact on obesity and other health problems?
The short answer is yes, probably, but not by very much.
Mexico
According to figures from the Mexican government’s National Institute for Public Health, sales of beverages affected by the tax actually increased, in comparison with the six-year period before it was introduced.
In 2014, sales increased by 6.4%, and in 2015, by 7%.
However, after adjusting for population growth, the relative increase in sales was 1.6% in 2014, and 1.1% in 2015.
And adding adjustments for seasonal trends (differences in weather from year to year), economic growth, and so on, the Institute claimed that in real terms, sales of the fizzy drinks actually fell by 6% in 2014, and 8% in 2015.
This echoes research, cited by the Irish Heart Foundation’s Cliona Loughnane, and published in the British Medical Journal in January 2016.
It found, in short, that in the 12 months after the introduction of the tax, consumption of drinks affected by it went down by an average of 6%, compared to what could have been expected if the tax were not implemented, and after adjusting for factors such as weather, economic growth, changes in population structure, and so on.
Moreover, analysis published in The Lancet earlier this month (April 2018) found that the biggest consumption decrease of sugary drinks was in lower income groups, which is the demographic more likely to suffer higher rates of obesity. (But more of the impact on actual obesity rates later.)
Research conducted by the beverages market research firm Canadean and shared with FactCheck showed that sales of soft drinks fell by 2.3% in 2014, the first year of the tax, compared to 2013.
In 2015, sales were up 0.8% on 2014, but still down 1.5% compared to 2013, the last year before the tax was introduced.
Data cited by the Irish Beverage Council’s Kevin McPartlan, in response to FactCheck, indicates that sales of carbonated soft drinks in Mexico dropped in 2014, but bounced back in 2015, to the extent that they were just 0.39% lower than in 2013, the year before the tax came in.
In response to our queries, Howard Telford, Senior Beverages Analyst at the market research firm Euromonitor, said:
The tax did bring about a deceleration in the soft drinks industry, causing it to grow by just 1% in total volume terms in 2014. However, the industry recovered in 2015, experiencing a 5% increase in total current value terms and 2% in volume terms.
France
In response to our request, the Irish Heart Foundation cited two documents as evidence for Loughnane’s claim that the sugar tax in France had causes a 3.3% reduction in consumption: this report by the UK’s National Heart Forum, and this one by the World Health Organisation.
Both cite research by the international market research firm IRI, which found that sales of soft drinks fell in France by 3.3%, in the first five months after the introduction of the tax.
However, the WHO report cited by the Irish Heart Foundation, which referred to the figure of 3.3%, also cautioned, “The impact of the tax is yet to be fully evaluated” and said “the reasons for this decrease [in soft drink consumption] cannot be ascertained…”
It’s also important to note that five months is quite a short time period on which to judge the effectiveness of a tax measure.
Canadean shared data with FactCheck which showed that while there was a 0.17% fall in soft drink consumption in the first year of the tax, there have been small increases in sales year-on-year, for the last three years.
In 2015, soft drink consumption in France was 4.2% higher than it was in 2011, the year before the tax.
A report by the research firm Ecorys for the EU Commission found that in 2012 and 2013, there was a combined fall in demand of 6.7% for regular cola, and 6.1% for low-calorie cola, after a period of increased demand, suggesting a strong correlation between the new tax and the fall in consumption.
Denmark
Data shared by Canadean shows that consumption of soft drinks had been declining slightly in 2008 and 2009, but increased very slightly in 2010.
There was a 3% increase in sales in 2011, and a 2.3% reduction in 2012, followed by a 3.1% boost in consumption in 2013, a year when the tax was reduced before being abolished entirely in 2014.
That year saw a significant, 6.8% rise in consumption, which would seem to be an effect of removing the additional tax on sugar-sweetened soft drinks. However, Howard Telford from Euromonitor cautions that “this is likely just consumption reclaimed from volumes sold in Germany”.
In the period leading up to the decision to abolish the tax, a significant number of Danish consumers shopped across the German border to avoid the tax on soft drinks and saturated fat.
Hungary
The Ecorys report found that demand for drinks affected by the tax (which was more wide-ranging than in other countries) fell significantly, but in most cases demand was already falling significantly in the years leading up to the tax.
For example, sales of carbonated soft drinks fell by 15.1% from 2011-2013, but had already been falling by 13.5% from 2007-2011.
United States
A 2009 paper in the Journal of Public Economics focused on the effects of fizzy drink taxes among children and teenagers. It found:
A one percentage point increase in the soft drink tax rate reduces the amount of calories consumed by soda by nearly 6 calories, which is about 5% of the average calories from soda.
It added that “soft drink taxation, as currently practiced in the United States, leads to a moderate reduction in soft drink consumption by children and adolescents…”.
Why taxes don’t always lower consumption the way they “should”
A fundamental principle of economics is the law of demand: the more expensive a product gets, the less demand there is for it (setting aside diamonds and Bentleys for now).
Related to this is the principle of “price elasticity of demand” – the ratio between a change in price and a change in demand. So if a 10% increase in the price of a product leads to a 10% decrease in demand, the price elasticity of that product is -1.
The price elasticity of fizzy drinks varies from place to place and across socioeconomic groups, but is generally estimated to be around -0.7 or -0.8, so a price increase of 10% should, in theory, lead to a 7-8% fall in consumption.
So why doesn’t this always happen?
Sara Petersson, a Nutrition Analyst at Euromonitor, summarises much of the research with this breakdown, which we’ve paraphrased here:
Mike Gibney, Professor of Food and Health at UCD made this point to FactCheck, saying:
It doesn’t matter what the balance of calories is, it’s the amount of calories that counts.
Which brings us to the second question:
The short answer to this is no, but that might change in time.
FactCheck’s analysis of data from the NCDRisC project shows that in four countries which have had a sugary drinks tax in recent years (Mexico, France, Denmark and Hungary), average BMI (body mass index) and obesity prevalence increased or remained static, year-on-year, from 2008 to 2014.
You can download a spreadsheet of that data here. (Update to that data, which ended at 2014; there was a similar minor increase in obesity rates recorded for each of those four countries in 2015 and 2016 – those figures area available from the NCDRisC project.)
It suggests that, while it is possible the introduction of sugar taxes may have slowed those increases, the taxes certainly did not cause a single percentage decrease in average BMI or obesity prevalence in 96 opportunities for that to happen (four countries, six years, two measures, two gender categories).
In the case of Denmark, which cut their tax in 2013 and abolished it in 2014, any-year-on-year increases in BMI and obesity in those years were of the same magnitude as increases in the preceding years, and in fact the rate of increase slowed or became negligible in 2015 and 2016.
The British Medical Journal study published in January 2016 and cited by the Irish Heart Foundation (and many others) as evidence for the success of the tax in Mexico, found that consumption of soft drinks effectively fell by 6% in the first year after the tax.
Setting aside for a moment that that figure is disputed, the paper itself states that this decrease equates to 12 fewer millilitres of soft drinks per person per day.
That’s a decrease of around two teaspoons (roughly one healthy sip) of a fizzy drink (or 0.4% of a standard 330 ml can) per day.
A draft study by researchers at the Instituto Tecnológico Autónomo de México compared body mass index (BMI) among 8,000 households in 2013 (the year before the tax) and 2015 (the second year into the tax) and found the tax had a “very small” effect on calories consumed.
…If anything the tendency has continued to rise, albeit by a small quantity. It seems that so far the existing tax has not had a detectable decrease in BMI.
The Ecorys report for the EU Commission found that in France, the tax had led to a fall in soft drink consumption of 3 to 3.5 litres per year, per person.
That equates to 8.2 to 9.6 fewer millilitres a day – about one sip of a fizzy drink.
It should be noted that several studies can be found which project a likely or possible reduction in BMI and obesity, but this research is generally based on predictive models, rather than data gathered in the context of a tax having already been implemented.
By contrast, a 2013 study of the impact of already-implemented taxes in the US found:
The…results indicate that taxes have a small negative effect on BMI, however it is not statistically significant.
And concluded:
Our research does not support the theory that soda taxes have a negative effect on body-mass index.
Another, published in the Journal of Adolescent Health, found:
…Existing taxes on soda, which are typically not much higher than 4 percent in grocery stores, do not substantially affect overall levels of soda consumption or obesity rates.
However, it noted that certain sub-groups of children (those who are already overweight or come from a low-income family) may be more sensitive to tax increases.
And, in an illustration of the “substitution” effects described by Sara Petersson from Euromonitor, the 2009 study in the Journal of Public Economics which found taxes lead to a “moderate reduction in soft drink consumption” concluded:
…This reduction in soda consumption is completely offset by increases in consumption of other high-calorie drinks.
Part of the reason for this lack of impact on BMI is the proportion of calories composed of sugars, and particularly sugary drinks, which varies widely from place to place.
In Ireland, a 2011 study found that between 6.4% and 11.5% of the calories we take in every day come from added sugar, and only some of those come from soft drinks (the rest come from table sugar, cakes, confectionery, jam, and so on).
That’s compared to fat, for example, which makes up between 25.7% and 35.4% of our caloric intake.
However, some of the studies mentioned above also pointed to the relatively low level of tax on soft drinks, and suggested that a significantly higher levy might potentially begin to have concrete effects on BMI, obesity levels, and public health.
And finally, the current gap in evidence of an observed (rather than predicted) reduction in BMI, obesity, diabetes, and so on, may in future be filled, as the effects of relatively recently-introduced taxes develop.
As Sara Petersson, Nutrition Analyst at Euromonitor notes:
The majority of existing food and drink taxes have only been implemented in the last decade.
This is too little time to truly appreciate the effects of these legislations on consumer behaviours and most importantly health.
Send your FactCheck requests to factcheck@thejournal.ie
TheJournal.ie’s FactCheck is a signatory to the International Fact-Checking Network’s Code of Principles. You can read it here. For information on how FactCheck works, what the verdicts mean, and how you can take part, check out our Reader’s Guide here. You can read about the team of editors and reporters who work on the factchecks here.
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Fact check, does a politician care more about increasing tax revenue or the health of the public?
They only care about being seen to care about something.
The politician in question didn’t do a whole lot for health when he was in charge but he knows a dead cert taxable item when he sees it.
Personal responsibility in Ireland…..good one
Let’s keep smoking, drinking and eating like fools, but blame the health system for being broken…
Smart stuff Entitlement Ireland…..
I would be more concerned about sweeteners than sugar. They are the real problem. Just check out any package. Lot more sinister.
Can the tax be 100% ringfenced and used to provide us all with a party every year? Or will it go towards paying off some bondholder debt?
Hi Aubrey, I’m interested in your comment on sweeteners. Do you know where I can find peer reviewed randomised controlled studies to substantiate your position please?
But the timing cause obesity – which is the whole point of this tax (not that I agree with the tax – it’s overall calories that count when it comes to putting on weight)
But they (sweeteners) don’t cause obesity – which is the whole point of this tax..
We have extremely high tax on booze and fags and that makes no difference at all.
Education is the way forward. Irish people don’t like to be told what to do.
What’s the issue with sweetener?
It’s generally accepted over numerous studies that the standard sweetener in canderelle increases risk of cancer. Although as a rule of thumb if you are putting unnatural products in your body over natural it is harmful.
Oh and sweeteners do cause obesity. Your body has the same insulin reaction to artificial sugars however when the body receives no actual energy from the products your body retains water and increases the cravings.
This is simply untrue
@Jim Brady: i wonder if you can find one on amino sweet ?did you know why it had a name change?
No, it doesn’t work. Most likely there will be a short term dip in consumption followed by a return to the status quo, with a permanent bump in the tax take, which lets face it is the point.
We are so worn down from new and more taxes being the solution to everything (according to the government), that if you want to make people sit up and notice then you need to lower the tax on healthy foods instead of hiking tax on the unhealthy ones.
perfectly said FC. It’s like tax on petrol..but now they realise petrol motors are cleaner than diesel . This government, as past governments, have no clue. The world is moving fast, we are moving fast..and we have a load of old fogies ruling our country
@jenni: The one policy I agreed with from Renua was the one (albeit trotted out by others many times before) to get rid of motor tax and add it onto petrol and diesel. Overnight you’d remove the cost to the taxpayer of issuing and policing car tax discs, and add a sense of fairness to road usage.
Perfectly said both FC and jenni. Poor performing, overpaid, useless bunch of politicians with very limited ability, who think raising taxes is the solution to everything.
Are we seriously being asked to believe that the Irish government actually care about the health of the nation? Think about the existing sham that they call a health care system. Decades of lies, incompetency and neglect. Tax after tax we continue to be mugged in our sleep and every time we are expected to trust its for our own good.
If you didn’t laugh you’d cry.
I don’t think anyone doesn’t believe a sugar tax isn’t anything more than a cynical attempt at further taxation disguised as something for our benefit.
We already have among the highest taxation in Europe on tobacco products and alcohol yet there is no attempt to ring fence any of this and send it directly into our health System. We have Road tax paying for Irish Water.
It may not lower consumption but at least tax raised from sugary products can be used to fund the medical costs of people who suffer the side effects of over consumption of these products, if people buy a lot of sugary products and suffer from obesity and diabetes etc. as a result they will have contributed more tax which can fund their medical expense and cost to the state
@ For Connolly
“lower the tax on healthy foods instead of hiking tax on the unhealthy ones.”
What tax is there on healthy foods?
As far as I am aware there are none.
Do you mean subsidise the cost maybe?
Presumably VAT?
Of course it will work. Food manufactures will reduce the amount of sugar in their products because less people will buy them if they’re too expensive. It’s the same way cigarette tax is discouraging people from smoking.
Remember, we’re not trying to completely rid of sugar in products as a little sugar isn’t too bad, but food littered with sugar are very bad.
Taxes make up around 30% of our GDP, no harm in the state having more money and using that to improve services.
Has the tax in cigarettes actually discouraged people from smoking? I’ve never seen any evidence to support this…
@ ispycoffee
No VAT on fruit.
Also no VAT on most foodstuffs, such as bread, butter, cheese, cereals, condiments, flour, fruit, herbs, meat, milk, pasta, pastes, sauces, soup, spices, sugar, and vegetables (fresh or frozen).
http://www.revenue.ie/en/tax/vat/leaflets/food-and-drink.html
VAT applies to processed foods, mainly -
alcohol, bottled drinking water, soft drinks, juice extracted from, and other drinkable products derived from fruit or vegetables,
Ice cream, frozen desserts, frozen yogurts and similar frozen products, and prepared mixes and powders for making any such products or similar products,
savoury products made from cereal or grain, pork scratchings, and similar products such as vegetable crisps, prawn crackers, poppadums,
potato crisps/sticks/puffs and similar products made from potato, potato flour or potato starch,
popcorn, salted or roasted nuts,
biscuits and wafers wholly or partly covered or decorated with chocolate or similar product and
all kinds of chocolates, sweets and similar confectionery.
What about drivers in rural areas where there is no public transport to work and live a life. Most spend way more on fuel than motor tax. I’d only agree if there was a scrappage scheme, a cut in cost for ultra efficient cars, better rural road maintenance funds and an check on whether the cut in running motor tax would result in a saving to the gov and not a dept with suddenly nothing to do.
No vat on food here Inc soda
Hasn’t worked in other countries and won’t work here but sure that won’t stop our politician’s from rolling it out as a “look what we are doing for the kid” nonsense
Already have one of most penal Vat rates in Europe…. taxes upon taxes, another bs wheeze hidden under the guise of societal well being promotion, total bunkum !
It works perfectly for getting more money in to civil servants(politicians, councillors etc) pension funds like the money they took from the Lotto that was for kids sports facilities.
Didn’t Leo say 10 cent extra could bring in 100 million in a year? It isn’t just about hefty kids.
It is irrelevant whether or not it decreases sugar consumption. This is another tax imposed on us and it is far better from the government’s point of view if it doesn’t decrease consumption.
The most recent scientific studies show that artificial sweetners increase appetite and create false hunger pangs. Over a period of 15 years people who only drank low sugar/diet drinks had higher rates of type 2 diabetes than those that drank fruit juice or full sugar carbonated drinks. This tax will do absolutely nothing to tackle obesity levels. It is a cash grab for the government pure and simple.
That has to be The longest article EVER on the journal.ie. And possibly, only possibly, the most boring. I tried to read it, figures and sources of figures, and people trying to deal with said figures and what they mean
absolute rubbish
It was a long one alright
Ireland has the highest alcohol prices in Europe, look how that ended up…
Ireland has a history of binge drinking. Drink taxes just bring in cash and limit increased demand.The alternative is income tax, stealth taxes and much higher business tax to supplement any income loss. High drink taxes haven’t stopped us all drinking anyway.
Will this tax apply to orange juice etc too? Will sugar free drinks like Pepsi Max be exempt or will it be a blanket tax for anything fizzy?
Pure Juice has natural sugar so no. As for diet soda, no also hence cokes new sweetened versions of diet, max and that natura version. If it’s fizzy and has added sugar then yes.
Skinny kids and fat cat politicians
It will have as much effect as carbon tax had on global warming, as much as vat on alcohol had on addiction, as much as politians income had on value for money. Nothing will change
As most soft drinks contain around 10g of sugar per 100ml how about banning any soft drink from having greater than say 7g/100ml. That way you don’t unnecessarily tax people who drink soft drinks and you improve their health also by cutting their sugar intake.
@Jonny, but that would be reasonable and not fill the coffers of the government, we can’t be having this
The net result of a sugar tax is Monsanto make bigger profits!! Sugar is reduced in soft drinks and replaced with Aspartame which is deadly!! It causes fat and sugar cravings and where aspartame is consumed most heavily in the US Obesity levels and diabetes levels are highest!! A sugar tax is a big mistake – education is what is needed! I have Ulcerative Colitis – if I consume Aspartame I become very ill- it is poison and it is increasingly replacing sugar in many products- beware!!! A balanced diet is the best option!!
An aspartame ban on that demonic poison is a good start. It’s mad that luxury taxes don’t exist but taxes on the working and lower classes just get larger and larger. Tobacco is now a burgeoning black market. Alcohol is a massive luxury and now a sugar tax is being introduced to bleed more out of the battlers. Anyone who says the poor don’t pay tax is completely deluded. They pay the bulk of tax and don’t have accountants that write off tax or find loopholes. I wish there was a way to discount the price of healthy food and tax the advertising of unhealthy food at a premium. The rich get richer the poor get the picture.
The medical evidence has shown that the fears about aspartame are unwarranted. It’s mostly sites like Mercola.com that whip up fear about random ingredients without any regard for legitimate scientific evidence.
However, a caveat, you should avoid aspartame if you have a genetic condition called phenylketonuria.
Malachi – you make it sound like a handful of muesli crunching conspiracy theorists are driving a small campaign against Aspartame – you are very, very wrong! I’ve never heard of the site you mention, I do however know the history of Aspartame, how attempts at licencing it failed time after time on health grounds, how it was found time after time to have adverse health effects- this was happening since the 70′s – then Monsanto buy the licence, pay a few politicians off (legal political contributions ) and hey presto it is legal!! Go to ANY online forum with people with Chrons disease or Ulcerative Colitis and you will see time and time again people saying how sick they get if they accidentally consume Aspartame – this happened with me a few months ago, I can consume Fanta or club orange with no difficulties – I bought a can of Tango orange a while ago, totally unaware it contained Aspartame and was very sick afterwards! Many top scientists want it banned, but carry on with your head stuck in the sand!! DDT and Agent Orange – also harmless chemicals of Monsanto! ! :-/
Alcohol has both vat and excise duty.Tobacco has a special high tax. Luxury goods have naturally higher vat on them versus cheaper goods. We can all beat this by cutting out tobacco consumption, drinking less alcohol (mostly at home now). Taxes are the penalty for dangerous high consumption that everyone pays for in road deaths and our health services .
Same old, same old. Tax the poor thereby creating more poor people.
they usually use these gimmicks to distract people away from the real problems in the health service and give the impression they are doing something. the fella reilly before him was the worst for it.
FG know nothing but taxes…
More tax..I can’t wait to tell this to my aunt who’s on a trolly in the CUH..everything’s gonna be ok.we got a sugar tax on the way..that’s the best the can come up with..
Who cares. We all know taxes on alcohol and the squeezed middle do NOT work!
Yes. They give parents and government another reason to blame kids becoming overweight on someone else.
I think if you made it law to have a weighing scales outside the front door of a school (at a cost of about €15) it would have the same effect.
How about the government get involved with the companies producing these products and get them to reduce the amount of sugar in their products? That way we don’t get taxed more but the government achieve their goal, as I’m sure their priority is our health and not tax revenue.
Can’t do that as it would lose in an EU court as impeding free trade unless it was EU wide. We have to use taxes and labeling to curb buyer behaviour
You can get about 20 cans of some sort of cheap cola for around a fiver now so putting an extra say one euro on it wont stop anyone, its getting rid of the crap on the shelves that is poisonous , is the only way to solve it!
I’d prefer to see a tax on all sugar. We do it on tobacco and alcohol by volume. Just soda is simplistic and it would cut sales of high fat sweets and chocolates.
Everything has salt and sugar in it from bread to anything already prepared? So a hike in all prepared food now?
Sugar in bread is a minor ingredient. It’s not a sugar tax on all foods just the high levels found in most soda and energy drinks..
Give it time?
Ban Trans Fats not sugar like Denmark(2006), Switzerland(2009), Argentina(2014), US (from 2018) ….
- Diabetes Type2
- Obesity
- Alzheimers
Trans fats are artificial fats used to prolong the shelf life of food but shorten yours. They accumulate in the cell walls and adversely impact on the function of insulin and may cause obesity and may be the cause of incorrect cut of Amyloid protein in brain cell walls which leads to plaque buildup and brain cell death and loss of brain function. – some recent research papers “hint” at this.
Pure and simple this is another excuse for Big Government to lay on more tax. People are fools if they believe this in their best interests. More unnecessary interference into everyday life and removing the responsibility of choice. Just learn some damn self control when it comes to sugary drinks and other things we know are bad for us in high doses. If you drink a liter of coke a day you will get obese. wow, who knew!
Just frontloading taxes again which will affect the less well off again…More neo-liberal stupidity
Stupid idea .. Governments answer to everything TAX .. They don’t care bout your health only tax ..
Using terms like ‘mostly true ‘ and ‘yes , probably ‘ to state if something is fact a bit ridiculous to say the least.
Fizzie drinks? Try removing sugar from children’s cereals!
It’s a pure balderdash tax and they know it the bank debt still hasn’t gone away you the EU was save by lreland and still paying for it .
It won’t change a thing , people who can still afford will buy , people who can’t will just by cheaper products or worse buy in bulk as the shops will have huge deals on everything instead from tea cakes to 2lt bottles . Cross border shopping will increase again especially at Christmas . Education is the key especially at school. Ad campaigns on obesity, decent cookery programmes that show people how to cook healthy and
How to make their own sweet treats that aren’t laced with sugar . And for heaven sake BAN all sweets, Chocolates and Crisps for checkout areas.
Given that soft carbonated drinks range from approx €2.50 to 50c..how exactly will taxation work..?..will consumers only switch..
Sugar tax has not reduced consumption. Band/tax on children getting a lift to school if they live within a 2 km T’s & C’s apply
Diabetes kills 70,000 people a year in Mexico. Their sugar tax raises about $150,000 per month for health-focused community initiatives.
The money raised in taxes will go to help the people that sugar is killing.
What an abs. Stupid headline – How do we know if it works, if we didn’t have a sugar tax b4.
@James Delaney:
You don’t have to be overweight to have diabetes. And you don’t have to have diabetes for sugar to kill you. It contributes to Cardio Vascular Diseases, the number one killer in Ireland.
have your say