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 months

Recordings per month over the last 12 months — 2 in all, peaking in Sep 2026 with 1.

Appearances

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Today with David McCullagh · Sugar tax: could your biscuits and chocolate bars soon face a new tax? · 15 Sep 2026 podcast

Has

I think it's increasingly being seen as a disease, as a sort of remitting, recurring disease for many people, and I think that is important.

I think it's important that we take the stigma out of this

I think that's vitally important because if you look at the Irish population, for example, I think it's the last estimate, which was only done a couple of years ago under the Healthy Ireland survey, 35% of adults are overweight and 24% are obese.

So effectively speaking, 60% of the Irish adult population are overweight or obese.

So I think taking stigma away from this is absolutely crucial.

Yeah, but I suppose I would be concerned about the potential long term side effects of medication.

And I also think from a sort of a public health perspective,

prevention standpoint, we want to try and build environments that help prevent this disease occurring.

So we're moving, you know, reducing the enticements, as I say, to the cheap and highly calorific biscuits, getting people to walk more, you know, the active transport approach.

So building environments that actually promote and prevent this kind of disease.

Today with David McCullagh · National Lottery urging Government to stop bookmakers taking bets on its draws · 28 Apr 2026 podcast

Well, the way I approach it to some extent is gambling is gambling.

And, you know, I'm a firm believer in gambling control.

So I would be in support of the National Lottery in getting this ban.

But I do see an opportunity here.

I think, yep, okay, if that's what the National Lottery wants, let's make this sort of a quid pro quo situation.

At the moment, you know, in unclaimed prizes, the National Lottery receives an average of about 17 million euros a year back.

And we know from some years ago, some figures that were released, 98% of that, the National Lottery have the option of spending that on prizes or spending it on advertising.

Some figures released a few years ago indicated that they spent 98% of it on advertising.

So my position would be, okay, if you want this law, let's switch this up.

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