Vol. 577 No. 4
43 Mr. Stanton asked the Minister for Communications, Marine and Natural Resources his views on advertising aimed at children; the plans he has to regulate or to control such advertising; and if he will make a statement on the matter. [29940/03]
Children, like adults, are exposed to increasing amounts of advertising in all forms of media and the wider environment. Much of that advertising promotes products which are arguably not in the long-term interest of the individual child or of society in general. On the other hand, regulation of children's advertising must be considered in a broader context of children's programming generally and the standards that are reflected there. Taken together with the issue of revenue generated by such advertising, it is clear that addressing the issue of children's advertising in all its aspects is complex and presents major challenges.
Section 19(1)(c) of the Broadcasting Act 2001 provides that the preparation of codes and rules in respect of advertising which relates to matters likely to be of direct or indirect interest to children is a matter for the Broadcasting Commission of Ireland which is an independent statutory body.
It is already on the record that in November 2002, I requested the Broadcasting Commission of Ireland to prepare the codes envisaged under sections 19(1)(a), (b) and (c) of the Broadcasting Act 2001. In accordance with section 19(2) of the Act, it was specified that the commission should give priority to the preparation of the codes and rules relating to advertising directed at children.
The commission subsequently embarked on a public consultation process seeking the views of interested parties. With this phase of the process completed in July this year, the commission then moved to the next phase. It engaged in a process to raise public awareness of the development of the codes and gathered views on the content of the code using a second public consultation document. The commission is consulting widely, including consultation with children. I understand that the commission will publish a draft version of a children's advertising code and will then invite comments from the public. The intent is to finalise the codes by next summer.
