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THE INNOCENT LOOKING pear trees lining the residential streets of Marino in Dublin may not look like they’re at the coal-face of a battle for our children’s health and food education but they are.
Dublin City Council find themselves in the extraordinary position of being heavily lobbied to fell the trees which line the residential streets of Marino.
Some residents consider the fruiting trees a litter hazard in the autumn. Meanwhile as consumers we are buying pears, which have been shipped or flown into Ireland from across the planet to our local supermarkets.
To be fair to Dublin City Council, they’re only responding to the demands of local residents, some of whom are infirm or elderly and find the rotting fruit on the pavement a genuine hazard. Other local voices have joined the fray too opposing the tree fell and a stay of execution for the fruit trees is in place. But how did we get here?
Using our local produce
Why don’t we see this annual crop for the full potential it could be: from a potential revenue stream of harvesting, preserving and selling the pears to a teaching tool for local schools. If modern adults look at fruit trees and see a litter hazard how do we persuade children to value fresh produce?
The children who walk past these fruit trees on the way to school have been educated away from food that doesn’t come from a packet.
Wholesome, local food is now a rarity in many parts of the country for the same reason we have one of the lowest uptakes of breast milk in western Europe: there’s no immediate or serious profits in producing your own, local food.
There is, however, a huge cost. There’s the cost to people’s grocery bills in the short term, the loss of local social capital and the cost to the national health service, in the short and long term.
Education around food is a process. Habits and social norms do not change overnight yet the need for change has never been more urgent. Some of the children walking past those fruit trees have already been doomed to shorter, illness-ridden lives.
Research by Dr Cora Doherty, an Irish neonatal consultant working in University Hospital of Wales, shows that a new generation of children are being born who have already been malnourished in the womb. The mother’s diets are calorically high but nutritionally low so more and more children are being born with permanently compromised health.
Overweight and obese children
In fact one in four Irish children are either overweight or obese and obese children are more likely to become obese adults. The answer to this health time-bomb rests in schools rather than the home. Research carried out by Safefood Ireland suggests that parents have a blind spot when it comes to recognising their children’s weight, whereas messages about healthy eating coming from school programmes is having a positive impact on the diet of entire families.
Some children are lucky enough to be part of one of two impressive government schemes called Incredible Edibles and Food Dudes. Incredible Edibles encourages children to grow their own vegetable garden and Food Dudes focuses on encouraging children to eat more fruit and vegetables.
Amongst the cleverest aspects of Food Dudes is the flipping of pester-power, getting children to pester parents to give them the correct fruit or vegetables for each day, thus helping to educate parents around nutrition and tackling blind-spots at home.
Some 36% of primary schools signed up for the Incredible Edibles scheme in 2016, a 52% increase on uptake from 2015. This is partly due to the long awaited endorsement of the Department of Education.
The Food Dudes programme has an intensive 16-day initial intervention built on three pillars of positive role models, repeated tastings and rewards. The results have been, for the most part, impressive.
A year later Food Dudes still has a retention level of 80%.
There are some problems which reflect our centralised tendering system which favour big food businesses winning national contracts while local produce struggles to get heard. Like say, a local pear tree. Quality can be an issue too. Some of the fruits and vegetables used are questionable, with several cases reported to me of an abundance of sweet corn and bell peppers rather than native and dark fruit and vegetables to reflect the Incredible Edibles’ ‘Eat a rainbow every day’ message. The rainbows can sometimes be rather washed.
That said, the positive statistics in schools on take up is matched by impressive statistics in the home too with 94% of parents reporting that their children were eating more fruit and vegetables.
Better still 88% of parents said they were eating more fruit and vegetables themselves.
If the statistics are so good, where’s the problem?
The problem is that the programmes are not compulsory. Schools must voluntarily engage with the campaigns and although the Department of Education has finally, after much lobbying, got behind the concepts they have been laggards in this area.
Education on food and nutrition directed at all pupils in the secondary cycle is in a far worse state and in need of reform too. Whatever gains might be made in the early years through the select schools using Food Dudes and Incredible Edibles, this will be quickly lost in the secondary cycle.
The Department of Education are still teaching a home economics curriculum that includes margarine as an ingredient. There have been considerable reforms away from the Stepford wife model of Home Economics but we are a long way from equipping young adults with vital food life skills.
Radical change in our education curriculum could see many more subjects stitched into a school garden, no matter how small that may be.
We already know from urban schools in London that this can work. Even if we have the simple goal of ‘just grow one thing’ this can be woven into science classes, home economics and even a school canteen.
Joined-up planting schemes with local authorities could create a renaissance in local food production and urban foraging as well as an ark of local agri-knowledge, which we are in danger of losing forever. In the long term this will help us tackle our ballooning health costs as well as creating virtuous circles of community capital.
Ultimately, any school in Marino deciding to take part in a healthy eating scheme will not get any national support in using local suppliers as the fruit and vegetables supplied are big food business contracts. They aren’t so interested in schools harvesting local pears and you won’t find them tied to any pear trees in Marino any time soon.
Yet, a simple change in procurement could see a proviso that 5% of all the food and plants in these school programmes had to come from local farmers, foraged food or local businesses, ensuring that better local health outcomes were matched by fertile local economies.
Ross Golden-Bannon is a member of the Irish Food Writers’ Guild and rapporteur of the Guild’s White Paper, The Health of the Nation. Follow him on Twitter @Goldenshots.
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hang on! read very carefully what Ming says! quote ‘“I certainly won’t be paying it. If I can avoid paying it I will avoid paying it,” is not the same as saying he Won’t Pay It.
I dunno, “I certainly won’t be paying it” is quite similar to saying he won’t pay it.
then he goes on to say” If I can avoid paying it I will avoid paying it,” that’s a qualifying statement attaching a condition that he won’t pay if he can ‘avoid’ it. sure we’d all not pay it if we could avoid it!
don’t be fooled!
12.30 today Parnell Square Dublin.
Protest at Dublin Castle were the EU finance ministers are being wined and dined. Don’t believe their spin!
He won’t pay it. Unless he has to.
Trying to gain popularity; but won’t push it too far.
He’ll probably shout from the hills that he did not pay the property tax. He’ll declare it from the benches of Leinster House. The technical group will launch some form of protest of the Property Tax, in which Ming would be central, affirming he did not, nor will he ever, pay the tax.
It would then emerge Ming had actually paid his property tax, on time and in full. That all along, while he was protesting and condemning an injustice, which he swore he would not pay, he had actually lied and paid the tax.
He’ll then make a move so crass and brazen, form a story so bloated and wild that it speaks to his belief that the people he represents are nothing more or less than fools who will believe anything. He’ll say no, I did not pay the tax I was actually approached, by the Revenue, who said Mr. Flanagan you must pay the tax. They [the Revenue] sent me a letter saying the tax must be paid. I didn’t want to but they talked me into it.
Then we’ll see him on Vincent Browne muttering, stuttering, and ‘well basically-ing’ all over again.
Hence the I won’t pay unless I have to move. When asked why he paid the tax he can now say he had to and he stated that on record. The man is a plank simply put.
@Keith Martin. “Dont be fooled” you say, do you mean like we were by the lying spineless opportunist that promised “Labours way or Frankforts way”, I voted Labour all my life but Never will again. NEVER. The Labour party should be leading the opposition to this unfair unjust tax. Instead you are trying to undermine those that are representing their constituents. Watch Gilmore in this clip and tell me who’s fooling who? Labours way or Frankforts way.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Kpr2zaXvb4M&feature=youtube_gdata_player
“don’t be fooled”.But sure isn’t that what FG/Lab done at the last election,they fooled the people.
I also heard John Kelly the Labour Senator in Roscommon also requested to have his penalty points wrote off twice.
Whatever the situation. I haven’t paid it.
Spineless morons, hide behind womens skirts, get off your ass and support the people instead of skalking like a rat
What else would you expect from that Idiot
Which idiot?
@Keith – the fact that revenue are taking it means he may not have a choice. Pretty obvious why it was phrased in that way.
The property tax is discriminatory and therefore illegal under the principles of equality in our Constitution ; it can only be introduced by referendum ; in other words the government lets those who own and don’t own property, decide if one section of society pays for the other !
How is it un constitutional?
Also from what you are stating in your post then all taxes are un constitutional.
all taxes a re subject to the constitution and if they fail to uphold the inalienable rights of the constitution then they are null and void under Article 15.4 of the constitution; this applies to all law, not just money bills; which can only be originated in Ireland ; the framing of any budget by germany is an illegal one ; that’s what it says in the constitution !
Income tax is based on one’s income and therefore their ability to pay ; it is therefore a constitutionally sound tax . Tax breaks etc. are a somewhat different matter , particulary where national resources are concerned, in my opinion !
Who are you talking about? There are so many candidates….
Me neither.
@Leonard Washington
The well fed Labour guy is gone very quiet all of a sudden,,,,,,,seems they can only spout off nowadays about anyone that might be a threat or show them up for what they really are,,,, ,they havent copped on to the fact that they are ALL dead men walking,,,,,,,,bunch of useless invertebrates,,,,,The CAPITALIST LABOUR WORKERS PARTY,,,,,,,,,,what a comedic lot they are,,,,,,not a clue ,have they got,,,not a clue,,,the cemetary of dead political parties is getting overcrowed,,,PDs, Greens,,Workers Party,,and soon to be interred ,LABOUR…bring on the elections,,,,
I notice Mick Wallace isn’t on the list… But judging by his past encounters with revenue… He just won’t bother his arse paying it!!!
So, do you think he should pay it or not?
While I definatelty don’t agree with the property tax I think these politicians are only running these campaigns to seek votes at the next election. They know well revenue will just take the money at source. Ie their wages or even their expenses
It’s all just a smoke screen for re-election.
Healy Rae: Spineless individual who wouldn’t dare risk losing all the money he is making.
. You pay property tax but you also must pay if you live in a private estate management fees now has anyone tried factoring that in to this cause there’s going to be allot of people robbing Peter to pay Paul wake up Ireland let this lot know this is wrong
Actually, I’m not very keen on income tax; I’m wondering if I should falsify my returns next year?
Well isn’t that what one tends to do in these situations.
I paid 13K stamp duty(tax) on my home,now I’m expected to pay a further home tax,I got nothing in return for the stamp duty,what will I get for the home tax,seeing as all other services are being privatised,e.g bin collections etc?
We must be the sheeple.
Paying taxes to government does not make people sheeple, it’s the norm all over the world for people to pay taxes for the running of a country, no one likes paying taxes but funding has to come from somewhere, it’s the high wages and pensions coming from taxes that bothers me, while carers and mental health is abandoned!
The logic there is futile, Brian I suspect.
Don’t get me wrong; I think the property tax is cruel & unfair. But my opinion is irrelevant really.
But your point is equivalent to saying a person paid VRT on their car, so you shouldn’t have to pay Motor Tax.
Now, that may also be a valid point.
All taxes are just a method of getting money out of us. Saying you paid one doesn’t necessarily mean you’re exempt from others. Is that fair? Is tax fair?
I’ll let someone more qualified answer that.
You pay numerous taxes on your car.. tax on petrol, insurance levies, VRT, motor tax.
I guess your home is seen as an untapped target now for the Government.
and as for Sinn Fein, wait till they abolish property tax in the North before believing they will do the same here!
None of them r Sinn Fein nor is sf mentioned are u lost
Very well said . Typical SF
Cllr every politician likes to remind us that SF endorses a Property Tax up north,but fail to mention the amount of services this linked to also that the payee gets an invoice.
Would you like to highlight the same services i will recieve once i’ve paid.
If you wish i will detail the services relatives of mine recieve in Strabane for the £950 they pay a year.
I note theJournal never reported on this other piece of SF fantasyland economics either.. http://m.brne.ws/ireland/sf-property-tax-refund-needed-to-prevent-poverty-589113.html
Under funding for schools has destroyed Richard’s grammar.
Cllr Keith,no answer huh?Its ok no surprise there so.
@Norman – You didn’t ask Keith a question. Why do you expect an answer?
Thank you Nikolas,my bad.It would be nice if the Cllr would highlight the services we will recieve for our versus the tax my relatives pay in the north.
Well Cllr, i will pharse it as a question will you address my comment,north versus south property tax and services recieved?
Sinn Fein are mentioned and quoted in the article. You are the one who’s lost, friend.
Cllr can you highlight the benefits of a property here versus the north?ie what services we’ll recieve.
Services
Libraries
Leisure Centres
Street lighting
pavements
roads
heritage protection
social housing
affordable housing
sheltered housing
planning enforcement
drinking water
sewers
sewerage
arts funding
art centres
youth centres
Fire service
parks
playgrounds
walkways
cycleways
Will that do you for now. All in my home town of Westport all provided by local council.
Thats cause its not in the interest to report what is actually happening, the tabloids are in the back pocket of the so called GOVEN MENT so don’t expect any truth to come from them, old time propaganda.
Yes, and in England we get all these and the Fire service, ambulance door to door, street lighting, bins,, unless you are on another planet here in Ireland you pay extra for the fire service, water bins, and road tax pays for most of the roads, or at least thats the theory yep, its corruption all the way to the bank
What paid for these till now Cllr?
Road Tax
Commercial Rates
Development Levies
And Central Government grants
So let’s stick to the topic. SF hypocrisy over different taxes for the people of this island.
Sorry Cllr but your’re talking rubbish,
Up north
School transport,books and lunch
Bins collected,Fire service .
and everthing else you mentioned aswell streetlighting etc.
My income tax,the vat i pay,the excise i pay,pays for these things already and lets not forget your pay and expenses.My currant tax goes to all these things.
Ah Ha! So you ARE IN FAVOUR of a property tax! Thanks for clearing that up for us!
Thanks for clearing up your position, you are in favour of Northern Ireland property taxes. Can you confirm this is Sinn Fein policy or have you let the cat out of the bag before Gerry?
My taxes pay SF TD salary and expenses. Including Aengus Ó Snodaigh TD’s €45,000 on ink. Including Caoimhin O Caoilean’s Social Welfare claims! and Gerry Adam’s future state pension (how many is he up to now? Three?)
Goodbye Norman!
Can you read Cllr i didn’t say i was for or against property tax.I asked you to point out what we will recieve for a property tax versus what is recieved in the north which thus far you have been unable to do.Would you like to try again?
Spam alert!
Nikolas. Re the Norman post. ” would u like to highlight the services I will get when I pay this tax” sounds like a question to me.
Currant Tax!! Are they taxing fruit now?
Is nothing sacred!
How were these funded before the talk of property tax?
I understood that road tax does not go to the local council?
If there has been a massive drop on commercial rates income does that not strongly suggest that there is a major economic crisis, as further evidenced by the fact that 50% of SMEs aren’t servicing bank loans. So in light of this, you think it is wise to simply attempt to levy another tax?
Maybe we don’t want the services provided by county councils? Maybe we don’t want to pay county managers more than the Spanish prime minister. Maybe we don’t want a system that is not accountable to local democracy. Maybe we don’t want such an expensive and largely inefficient executive team. Maybe we don’t want legions of councillors drawing massive allowances for attendance at numerous committees. Maybe we want a public sector to get a better grip of reality.
Maybe we don’t want a revenue chief, charged with collecting this tax, to be paid more than her boss. I could go on and on and on. I am not sure though if you and your sort will listen, in time.
I hope they will keep up this campaign also send it back put white sticker on front and note return to sender and to have a protection on this then log on and join attack the tax .ie Also note that revenue from limerick haven’t sent you this letter it came from a post box number . Note it says This is a notice ” it is not an invoice . This is an illegally corporation also note it’s not signed which therefore suggests its not a legal document .
Under your constitution you have your right not to pay this charge
Green thumbs for you :)
I’m afraid you’re very much mistaken. government does not invoice anyone for taxes! it demands them! legally the state does not have to invoice taxpayers. don’t fall for the attack the tax waffle.
Helen your living in fantasy land if you think your going to avoid this tax, they will get it one way or the other from you, attack the tax is misleading people into thinking they can avoid this, if every other country in the OECD pays a property legally that should really tell you, there is no getting away from it!
Freeman nonsense
You have the right not to pay it. But the revenue has the right to come after you and get bailiff/sherrif orders with backing of courts to take it from you. Plenty of precedent on this. Thats why they transferred control from councils to revenue.
You haven’t read your rights as a citizen purchase your blue constitution rights book
The government have created a corporation to which is running fraudly on a licence when they realised the people knew this they created a illegal document . Remember the oreachtas is a corporation the last sitting of Dáil Éireann was in 1922 aprox . Listen to this and learn http://m.youtube.com/#
Cannot seem to upload link from u tube don’t know why
Can’t seem to upload link from u tube
The Poll tax in England was halted. Why give in? Austerity doesn’t work. More taxes doesn’t work. Even the masters of the austerity are back peddling this week.
Freeman nonsense again
They were paying Rates in UK before Poll tax, and paid Council Tax after. The riots cost millions and achieved little. Also you might want to check the legal advice you are dispensing…
Under your constitution you have your right not to pay this charge
This claim is utter nonsense!
CLLR MARTIN ,I don’t know what party you are with ,and I don’t care ,but all these new taxes are the government decision to pay unsecured bond holders and bail out banks ,,the government had choices, it took the choice to load private debt onto the irish people ,,and for the working people lower middle class, unemployed ,to pay for this debt ,thank god the irish people are fighting back in their thousands ,with protests ,marches ,and a boycott of revenue demands ,,time you came into the real world ,and grow a pair of balls ,,the government says cut back ,,we say fight back http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1UZ6KXjdhFI&feature=player_embedded#!
Once again it’s the wealthy refusing to contribute to society
So the unemployed who can’t pay their mortgage are now wealthy.How did you work that out?
@Norman – TDs are not unemployed. The article is specifically about those TDs who will refuse to pay.
At a loose end Nikolas?
Since when are TDs unemployed?
Labour politician’s believe in a Wellfare state
They believe in looking after their own Wellfare and they are doing a great job at it ‘ need I go on
Labour politicians at this stage are running scared.Alot of new Lab TDs now know they are one term wonders.As for their local cllr’s they’re beginning to panic,watch the ramping up of attacks on FF and especially SF from them.
Pointing out the hypocrisy of FF and SF is not an attack. FF got us into this mess. SF say they have a magic wand to take us out of this mess. Calling them on those facts is not an attack.
Labour don’t do hypocrisy?really?
Not as well as you do Hyperbole!
Hit a nerve did i?
More Hyperbole!
“They believe in looking after their own Wellfare and they are doing a great job at it”
Looking at the polls, I’m not sure I agree.
Great comeback Cllr Keith,so you believe Labour are true and honest?Did you miss Pat Rabbitte on the Week in Politic’s.Or Eammon telling us any cuts to child allowance was a Red Line issue for the Labour party?
BTW Cllr you clearly don’t understand the meaning of the word Hyperbole.
Hyperbole=an exaggerated claim,not meant to be taken literally.
Doesn’t apply to any of my comments to you.
I would suggest you learn the meaning of a word before you use it.
A recovery where people just spend on imports and foreign holidays will not be helpful Therefore taxes that take the money from unpatriotic people before they rush to the airport or to mostly imports shops are the necessary future.
….said Kim Jong-un.
Tom, just curious is everything that is imported not subject to various taxes?Also the majority of imported items are not produced or grown here.Eg,cars and pineapples.
No we don’t tax EU imports and they don’t tax our exports to them. It’s the common market. Remember that?
So no excise,no vrt,no vat?
VRT goes against the common market ideals Cllr,you do know this i trust.
Norman,
Correct about the VRT but the reason we are still having to pay it is because the fines levied on Ireland for charging VRT is much much less than what they bring in in VRT annually
Great … we’ll be 7 less useless TDs after the next election!
Just another 159 to go.
Surely the threat of – “we’ll take from your wages” can be implemented on TD salaries too. Unfortunately we are not going to get away without paying this TAX.
Why can they not just have one amount for people to pay as they do in UK, which covers all services etc.
I notice the TDs are not over the same barrel as the rest of us. They get 9 months to get their tax clearance cert, where ordinary people need to have it before they can legaly work.
Become a SHAREHOLDER with ATTACKTHETAX.COM and you will not have to pay this unjust tax….
More political pandering this sort of crap sickens me
I rent. Actually, I’m not even on the rental agreement. My father is. I’m in no way associated with the property I live in. I don’t even own the kettle! Dads on dole. Yet because I’m the tax payer in the family, I got hit with property tax.
Don’t waste your time making a stand – nobody will ever back you up when it comes to the crunch. There’s none of the old fire left – we’ve had it too cushy for too long now.Maybe in a year or two desperation will raise a few causes but by then the laws will be too strong, so either put up right now or shut up and take your medicine. One word of advice though, expect no real action from politicians, just ducking and weaving.
Disappointed with Stephen Donnelly capitulating so quickly. He would be the only one of the independents with true integrity to generate a boycott of this charge/tax/fine. It would be zero cost for him to follow through the process of non payment until (if they can) they take it directly from taxes, and he can back up the story with why this is a double taxation.
The remainder will be excluded from politics afterwards – is a tax clearance cert going to be the new ‘oath to the king’? Bow down, or you can’t get in!
apart from the few tds that wont pay it ,,,the rest are a bunch of self serving gutless worms ,what do you expect from them ,they want to load private debt on to the people ,,,gombeens ,liars ,gutless party yes men /women
http://m.youtube.com/#/watch?v=a73PB_-Ozt4&desktop_uri=%2Fwatch%3Fv%3Da73PB_-Ozt4. Please listen to this and educate
“Freeman” rubbish…the model for their con job was imported from USA….amateur lawyers claiming to find loopholes that “real” lawyers cant or won’t find. They draw you in for “Free”, but later charge you for “training”, “enlightenment”, conferences etc…
Is Joan Collins not paying it …? Always knew she was a Diva …
Paddy Power should run a book on which one of these carries out the threat. Also which one looses their seat if they follow through on their promise.
Great news, we can just jail these socialist idiots who will never create or generate 1c for the economy
yes it was all the socialists that got us into economic trouble ,,and the nurses and guards and firemen ,and the ordinary working people ,,well we must have, because the government wants us to pay for it ,
have your say