Simon Coveney (Cork South Central, Fine Gael)

I move amendment No. 43:

In page 45, between lines 42 and 43, to insert the following:

"(g) that advertising, teleshopping material, sponsorship and other forms of commercial promotion employed in any broadcasting service, which relates to the promotion of alcoholic beverages, in particular beverages with a high alcohol content, shall have regard to general public health concerns,".

These three amendments deal with how we address alcohol advertising. I have not been very successful with my amendments on religious advertising but I appeal to the Minister on this issue. What I propose is that, taking public health into account, we would ask the authority to put a code of conduct in place to deal with the advertising of certain alcoholic beverages. In the same way that we are dealing with junk food advertising, we would give power to the authority, should it deem it necessary, to introduce a prohibition on certain types of alcohol advertising, or at certain times of the day, and that would be reinforced by placing a requirement on the authority to appear before the Oireachtas committee to discuss the impact of its codes of conduct once a year.

My amendments are not likely to result in a legal prohibition on the advertising of any forms of alcohol. This is a stick to hold over the industry. Voluntary codes of practice are in place, and they are working to a certain extent but we need to continue to make progress on this issue. If that does not work then we have an alternative, and this is it. What the Minister is saying is that we need to give the authority the power to introduce a prohibition on junk food advertising for children but not alcohol advertising. I do not see the sense in that.

Ireland has an alcohol problem. The industry is very slick in terms of its advertising. Many in the industry have acted responsibly in the past two to three years in terms of implementing codes of practice and voluntary censorship on when alcohol advertising is broadcast and the type of alcohol advertising in terms of the alcohol content of certain drinks. I acknowledge that and wish to put it on the record. However, I also recognise that we are putting legislation in place for decades to come and I wish to ensure that if certain elements of the alcohol industry start to act irresponsibly, if the voluntary codes are not working because they do not have the teeth to persuade the industry to implement restrictions on a voluntary basis, then there is a fall-back position. These amendments would ensure that the industry would take legislators and the authority seriously because it knows that there is this nuclear option in the background in terms of prohibition and that there is a legally defined and recognised code of conduct in terms of alcohol advertising.

It is important to note that there are real drawbacks to asking the authority to implement codes of practice for alcohol advertising because much of our television is broadcast from outside the State and so we cannot control through legislation the advertising broadcast. My preference is to ensure we have a robust voluntary code of conduct that the industry would buy into, but we are aided in that process if we have the armoury in legislation to implement a more blunt mechanism to try to ensure that Irish broadcasters do not advertise alcohol irresponsibly in the future. I hope it will never come to that but it is worth having that provision in legislation. If we have it for junk food we should have it for alcohol. It is not just about protecting children, it is about protecting the public from any potential abuses in alcohol advertising in the future.

See this speech in context