Lynn Boylan (Sinn Fein) | Oireachtas source

I thank the Minister of State for endorsing and supporting the European Citizens' Initiative. I encourage anybody who has not yet done so to sign up for it. The Minister of State might have a chat with the Minister for Enterprise, Trade and Employment when he sees him next and suggest that he supports a ban at state level. France and the Netherlands have done this. Lanzarote has gone one step further and banned advertisements altogether across the island, which is my preferred model. We will take it in baby steps. Fossil fuel adverts are misleading and are deliberately trying to give an impression that these companies are focusing away from fossil fuel extraction and looking at renewables when we know the reality is that a tiny percentage is focused on renewables. Theirs is a business-as-usual philosophy.

If the Minister of State wants to help and cannot get a ban over the line, he might have a chat with his Government colleagues about how we regulate advertising in this country. It is a process of self-regulation and it is cumbersome to make a complaint. It takes a long time and advertisements are rarely overturned for being misleading. At the end of the day, they have been run anyway and have done their purpose. It would be good if we could at least tighten the regulation of advertising, if not implement a ban on fossil fuel adverts.