Dr Frank Houghton
speaker
99 appearances
2 recordings
1 series
first heard Apr 2026
last heard 15 Sep
Dr Frank Houghton’s voice in public audio — every appearance, attributed to the second.
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recordings per month · last 12 monthsRecordings per month over the last 12 months — 2 in all, peaking in Sep 2026 with 1.
Appearances
Yeah, that covers sort of carbonated or fizzy drinks, as you mentioned.
And in our evaluation, which we conducted for the Department of Health, we did find it had quite a significant reduction.
In the year after it was implemented, we actually noted that the average person in Ireland had between a 20% and a 30% reduction in sugar intake via carbonated drinks.
Now, for any public health intervention, that's just a fabulous result.
Yep.
And effectively, I mean, inflation has eroded it, which is undoubtedly going to have an impact.
We've also found that, you know, a lot of shops aren't necessarily differentiating the price.
So maybe they're gouging, maybe they're absorbing the profit.
It's hard to know which it is.
But what we saw is, you know, the carbonated drinks tax, the sugar tax, it clearly worked.
But that's only sort of, you know, part of the equation.
There's obviously the chocolate, sweets, confectionery, all of these things that we need to seriously look at.
Yeah, I think that, to be honest, that's one of the next things that a lot of these countries are going to have to start looking at.
You're right, there's well over 100 countries have introduced the sugar tax on drinks.
The number that have a specific sugar tax...
on foods is quite small.
I suppose Hungary is probably one of the best examples.
About a decade or so ago, they introduced what they call their public health product tax.
But I do think that's where we need to start to go.
I mean, I'm particularly concerned about young people.
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