Eamon Ryan (Dublin Bay South, Green Party) | Oireachtas source

I did not have any discussions with the Ceann Comhairle and I would never do so, given he is an independent constitutional officeholder and he decides. He was probably making a correct call in that our Department does not have specific authority for advertising standards. The Deputy makes the case that in previous instances, the Department of Health may have been involved in amending the regulations for tobacco advertising, and I will look at whether a line Department can introduce standards in advertising. I would have thought that would also have to go through the culture and media Minister, my colleague Deputy Catherine Martin, in the context of the application of it.

I do not believe we should just hand over responsibility for an industry-led advertising standards body. It does good work but in terms of public policy measures, the State still has a role. The exact mechanism in this case is slightly different from the tobacco advertising restriction because the definition of what we would or would not include or allow in this form of advertising is quite broad. It goes into the transport and energy sectors. We could argue, for example, that it might include fossil-based fertilisers or other products as well as, going back to what we were discussing earlier in the context of the circular economy, waste, oil-based plastics and so on. The complexity of the climate challenge we face and the addressing of it is such that fossil fuels are embedded in so many elements of our society. The very beneficial change to tobacco advertising regulations is not as easily applied here because of the variety of elements of fossil fuels in our lives.

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