Catherine Noone (Fine Gael) | Oireachtas source

I thank the Minister of State. I thought there would be an annual report in advance of 2019. It does not make much sense to me. There is an urgency to this issue, and the idea that we would put a plan in place in 2016 and not get any feedback on it for three years does not make sense to me.

In addition, I have difficulty with the code of practice to which the Minister of State refers. By its voluntary nature there is no impetus on television or radio providers to do anything about it. When one watches the children's movies and so forth on RTÉ, there are rules where it needs to be more than 50% children who are watching it. The broadcasting agencies have all sorts of statistics about how those movies are mostly watched by adults, but I do not buy that. I do not think adults are sitting down watching the children's movie on a Saturday. Some of them may be in the house, but how do the agencies quantify who is actually looking at the television?

Advertising is still allowed to be shown at that time, and there needs to be a more mandatory level when it comes to advertising. There needs to be a watershed whereby after a certain time in the evening these types of sugary and fattening sweet drinks, food and confectionary are not advertised, in order that children do not see these advertisements. There is a problem with the online space as well, which must also be seriously addressed.