Ivana Bacik (Independent)

We could also discuss the ongoing situation in Palestine.

Last week I spoke about the appalling advertising campaign by Youth Defence and my efforts to persuade the Advertising Standards Authority for Ireland to deal with it in the same way that it deals with other commercial advertising campaigns. Various sanctions are available to it, such as requiring advertisers to amend or withdraw their campaigns. The authority has since informed me that the advertisements are outside its remit because the campaign is not commercial and I have now raised the issue directly with the Minister for Communications, Energy and Natural Resources. This is not a matter of censorship. Anyone who uses commercial advertising spaces should be subject to the same monitoring regime and citizens should be able to submit complaints if they so wish. That is a fair position to take and I understand that hundreds of complaints have been made to the authority on the matter. It is unfortunate that it regards the campaign as lying outside its remit but, if that is the case, its remit must be changed.