Louise O'Reilly (Dublin Fingal, Sinn Fein)
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791. To ask the Minister for Health the status of a work package being co-lead by officials in his Department under the European Union Joint Action Best ReMaP (details supplied); the documents or actions that have been produced to date; when the project is set to conclude; and if he will make a statement on the matter. [35929/22]

Frank Feighan (Sligo-Leitrim, Fine Gael)
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The EU Joint Action Best ReMaP (Best practices in Reformulation, Marketing and public Procurement) is a three- year programme concluding in September 2023. Ireland and Portugal are co-leading on the Work Package “Best practices in reducing marketing of unhealthy food products to children and adolescents”.

Among the key objectives of this Work Package are: to develop effective policies to reduce the exposure of children to unhealthy food marketing, and to deliver protocols and tools to measure the reduction in the marketing of unhealthy food to children, with a particular focus on digital marketing and health inequalities. Work has been underway on this Joint Action since October 2020 and there are 17 EU Member States participating in sharing expertise and experiences.

Ireland is leading on developing guidance for an EU- wide Code of Practice to reduce marketing of unhealthy food to children and on developing, testing and adapting protocols to monitor unhealthy food marketing to children with a particular focus on digital marketing.

A workshop led by Ireland who has already developed Codes took place in March to help participating Member States develop and implement Codes of Practice to reduce unhealthy food marketing to children and to integrate relevant best practises into their national policies. A Technical Guidance document has been developed and submitted to the EU Joint Action Steering Committee. A food industry EU-wide technical guidance is being prepared based on the WHO Nutrient Profiling Model, together with an outline on governance and monitoring. A document to encourage food companies and partner organisations to sign up to the Codes will be developed and a register of signatories will be maintained and published by the national monitoring bodies.

A scientific evidence review on voluntary versus mandatory Codes is also being prepared.

A workshop led by Ireland took place in May on Monitoring food advertising: Progress, experiences, challenges and solutions which included a review of global monitoring protocols. The WHO is a participating partner in this action. An EU -wide Marketing Monitoring Protocol is now being developed.