Lynn Boylan (Sinn Fein) | Oireachtas source

I thank all of the speakers. I will pick up on a couple of the topics that we have already been discussing. I want to discuss the impact of messaging on behaviour that can conflict with people's lived experience. Is that counter productive? I am giving the example here of public advertisements at the moment that tell one not use to their clothes dryer, because it is really bad for the environment and we need to all do our bit, particularly given the war effort, etc. For the vast majority of people who live in apartment blocks or in private rental, they have no choice but to use their clothes dryer. This is a matter of the importance of the messaging that is coming out. Particularly, there is an onus on public bodies if they are putting out messaging to look at the regulatory framework and how it relates to people's lived experience and to public services. Again, people are being asked to reduce their car speed, but they can be stuck on the M50 and are motoring home at 15 km/h and are being told to reduce their car speed for more energy efficiency. It is frustrating for people to hear a message that tells them to do one thing, but their lived experience or the infrastructure around them does not allow for it. I am interested to hear about how we go about fixing that.

I want to raise the separation of advertising and journalism. Many contributors have fixated on this, as well as the separation of journalists and their code of ethics. We might look at The Irish Times during the Celtic tiger and the number of adverts for selling houses that it published. That was a huge proportion of its revenue. Then, there were new articles that told people to get on the property ladder. That is why I do not think one can ever really overcome that. These are two issues and it is very hard to square the circle. I heard what Professor Lunn said about regulating advertising. We have a self-regulatory model of advertising in this country, which is the ASAI. Anybody who has ever tried to engage with it - as I have done on numerous occasions when I have reported greenwashing - will know that it takes approximately nine months for a decision to be taken. This is the industry vetting itself. If you are an elected representative they will ask if they can make that information available, but they do not make it available to the public, they make it available to the person who took out the advertisement. Therefore they will make an even stronger case to defend their actions. Do we need some sort of separation from industry and the regulator of advertising to ensure that if you engage with the process that issues such as greenwashing can be properly challenged? There is also the matter of industries. We know that the science is clear on fossil fuels and their impact on climate change. Do we just need to move to bans on certain advertisements like we did with tobacco? I know that Professor Walker spoke about the French example. It is my understanding that France tried to ban advretisements on fossil fuels and watered it down to health warnings. Are there certain sectors that we now just need to ban the advertising of? People have been convinced that SUVs are safer to drive and therefore if you have children you are being told to get an SUV to protect your family. The reality is, however, that all other road users are less safe because of the proliferation of SUVs. I would like to hear views on these points.