Before lunch I was referring to the section dealing with advertising. Perhaps the Chair will bear with me if I seem to be repetitious in my approach, but because of the fragmented nature of the debate it is difficult to retain a logical train of thought in the matter.
I had been pointing out to the Minister the problems that might arise with regard to the control and/or prohibition of certain kinds of advertising and I referred in this context to officers of the health board and their role in implementing these controls. I was making the point that under the present legislation, that is, the Consumer Information Act, there are specific controls in relation to certain advertising, namely, misleading advertising. Provisions of that Act that relate to misleading advertising are to be implemented by the Director of Consumer Affairs. I can see problems here. I can see overlapping of responsibility, but I can see also a grey area, the brightening of which will depend entirely on a definition of what is misleading advertising and, secondly, of what kind of advertising the Minister for Health and Social Welfare has in mind.
While I can see that the Director of Consumer Affairs will be responsible in the area of misleading advertising, the officials in the Department will be responsible for certain kinds of advertising. Are we to take it that this certain kind of advertising need not be misleading advertising, that it could be legitimate and lawful advertising and, if so, is there raised any legal or possibly constitutional matter? If the Minister says that his officials will be responsible for certain types of advertising which are legitimate, whose responsibility will it be, for example, if an advertisement appears which concerns the tobacco industry but which is misleading? Will the responsibility then rest with the Director of Consumer Affairs or will it rest with officials of the Department? There is a conflict here which I trust the Minister will be able to clarify. We will have now two parallel controlling bodies working largely in the same area with one given over totally to the question of misleading advertising and the other to the advertising of tobacco and tobacco products, with the two being kept apart.
I understand that the Minister has specified outdoor advertising. I think I am right in assuming that he is talking about advertising on hoardings, shop fronts, the exteriors of buildings and so on. If that is so, we are into an area where the provisions of this Bill can be side-tracked very easily through what is known in the business as in-store advertising. I am sure that at this moment the tobacco industry is giving some thought to expansion of in-store advertising. It can be done, and is being done, through the provision of certain kinds of display stands and other devices to attract customers to purchase specific commodities. I would like the Minister to clarify if the prohibition on advertising extends to all types of advertising, apart from radio, television, hoardings and public displays in the open air.
We now come to what I would regard as a rather difficult area—if we apply the criteria laid down by the Minister with regard to outdoor advertising—that is, shop fronts. The name of the shop owner is over the door, put there in many cases at substantial expense, in a very decorative manner and often incorporating an advertisement for a particular kind of tobacco product. To eradicate the reference to the tobacco product would involve defacing that decorative name sign which, in turn, would involve the shopkeeper in substantial expense replacing possibly the whole unit.
I know for a fact that at this very moment there are certain sign manufacturers smacking their lips at the thought of the vast expansion in their business through the demand there will be for the replacement of these shop signs. Consequently, we are back to square one. If that situation comes about through ministerial action, the shopkeeper will be involved in substantial expense because I understand these signs can be very expensive. Naturally we can expect the cost of this imposition will be passed on to the consumer in the long run. These are but a few of the grey areas which I can visualise arising out of the proposed legislation in its present form.
As I said, the Bill is but a framework in which the Minister is given absolute power to amend, change, expand on or eliminate any idea he thinks might be suitable at a given time. The Minister in his wisdom may be able to surmount these problems and come to an amicable agreement with the industry and the people involved but in the case of advertising he is not dealing with the tobacco industry alone, he is dealing with a vast area of other activities—the provision of signs and people's jobs. I am sure the Minister in no way intends to do anything that would worsen the unemployment position.
The other aspect of the Bill to which I object strongly—so far I have been trying to be constructive—is the provision in section 3 where the regulations made by the Minister are laid before the House. I tried on one occasion to have an order which was laid before the House discussed within the statutory time. I was given to understand that the normal procedure was that the Government provide time for discussion of such an order. My experience was that the Government failed to make Government time available. I was told that if I were to pursue this matter I should make the time available out of Private Members' Time. This is a parliamentary device. But in dealing with this kind of legislation, which is so vague and so open to ministerial intervention, it is unfortunate that the precedent has been set where the Government need not make time available for discussion on the proposed annulment of an order.
The Minister could stand up here and give an assurance that this will not happen in this Bill but he would be foolish to do that because he would not be able to stand over that guarantee. The position is that the Minister can introduce certain orders, efforts may be made to have them brought before the House and discussed with a view to annulment possibly in some cases, and the Government on precedent may not allow the time necessary to discuss them. Therefore, what we are talking about is legislation by stealth in what the Minister has stated is a very important Bill. This is a basic weakness in this Bill.
Before I conclude I would like to reiterate one point concerning sponsorship. The Minister said he did not visualise that existing sponsorship would be interfered with, even though there is nothing in the Bill to say that this is so. In the past few days a major sponsoring firm have withdrawn sponsorship, even though they were not asked to do so. I presume they felt there is no future in continuing with this sponsorship. I do not know what reasons the company gave for withdrawing it. The recipients involved were very fortunate that there was somebody else available to take up that sponsorship, but that may not be so in other areas where existing sponsors may see fit, for reasons best known to themselves, to withdraw. While the one example we had in the past week of withdrawal of sponsorship has now been rectified through a substitute sponsor coming in, there will be cases of withdrawal, and possibly in the very near future, where no substitute sponsor will take up the slack. Could we have a guarantee from the Minister that in the event of a sponsor withdrawing and nobody else taking up that sponsorship he will step in and provide sponsorship in that case?
I should like to refer to the kind of budget made available to the new monitoring section to be set up to monitor advertising. I presume to do the job properly will entail a substantial undertaking which will cost money. I hope that the health boards, who will be charged with this responsibility, will be given sufficient funds to deal with this new area of activity, and that they will not be fobbed off by being given a block allocation and told: "Cover A, B, C and D and also E, which is your new area of responsibility". I hope they will be given an adequate budget to live up to their responsibility of monitoring advertising, be it legitimate or misleading, because it would seem that we are now entering the whole new area of the prohibition of legitimate advertising.
In principle I am in agreement with the Minister in what he is endeavouring to do. He has my goodwill in his approach. I would be indebted to him if he could tell me how to give up smoking, and there are thousands of people who would owe him the same debt of gratitude, which would constitute a much more positive approach than some of the negative aspects of this Bill.