Mr. Ross Mac Mathúna:

There are a number of ways in which one might go about it. People can have parental controls on televisions, iPhones or computers. We have some of the foremost minds in information technology in Google, YouTube, Facebook and the like which are based in Dublin. It is not beyond the bounds of possibility that there is a system of age verification that is robust which we could use to prevent children from having access to advertising or information that may not be appropriate to them.

From my perspective, sponsorship comes within the advertising piece. Brands sponsoring sports events is a particularly emotive topic for obvious reasons. The market in the consumption of alcohol has declined a great deal in the past 15 years. The companies that sponsor sports events are typically beer companies, but the level of consumption of their product has declined probably faster than the market has. It is interesting to look at the consumption figures for various product categories. The level of wine consumption is increasing, yet the spend on advertising by wine companies is probably lower than for the rest of the companies and they do not sponsor sports events.

We need to be very careful in drawing conclusions about what may seem at first glance like something that is logical but on which the evidence does not stack up.