Frances Fitzgerald (Dublin Mid West, Fine Gael) | Oireachtas source

Earlier this year I issued an invitation to Irish fashion retailers to prepare guidelines to address increasing concerns over the sexualisation of childhood and issues such as body-image. The invitation was taken up by Retail Ireland and on 28 June this year, I launched its new children's wear guidelines. It is important to note that these guidelines are not just about restricting what retailers can sell, but instead provide a more constructive guidance on best practice on a range of issues such as styling, slogans, age-appropriateness, size, labelling and marketing. These guidelines are an important part of a framework to ensure that we deal with some of the issues which are emerging in this area. Retail Ireland has also put in place a follow-up mechanism.

The guidelines are still new, having been launched just four months ago, so it is too early to judge their effectiveness. Retail Ireland has been in regular contact with my Department and will be providing an annual report on progress. The signatories to the guidelines are Arnotts, Brown Thomas, Clerys, Debenhams, House of Fraser, Marks and Spencer, Next, Penneys, Tesco and TK Max, which is quite a range. Heitons are due to sign up shortly. There are some notable companies that have not signed up yet and I have written to some of them asking them to do so.

Retail Ireland members met in early October to discuss the implementation of the guidelines and I understand that an updated report will be presented to me in the near future. I also understand that yesterday Retail Ireland met some parents' representatives to review the implementation and consider some concerns which the representatives had. It is good that the launch has been followed up by the emergence of an ongoing process to review the implementation and compliance.

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