IT’S THE “nanny state gone mad”, declared Fine Gael party chairman Charlie Flanagan  in the Dáil recently in anticipation that the Broadcasting Authority of Ireland was about to ban the advertisement of cheese on television and radio before 9pm.

There was just one small problem with his argument – the authority is not planning to ban cheese ads before 9pm and swiftly issued a statement highlighting the “inaccurate” premise behind Flanagan’s great cheese defence.

What the authority is proposing, advertisers, broadcasters, parents and public health officials will discover tomorrow when it publishes a new draft of its Children’s Commercial Communications Code, and opens it up to a second phase of consultation. The first phase, last autumn, generated responses from more than 200 interested parties.

The authority’s mandate is to ensure that commercial communications of particular interest to children, specifically those broadcast during children’s programmes, are “responsible” in their messaging and portrayal of food and drink.

This could, in theory, mean some restrictions on high-sugar and high-fat foods during certain ad breaks and/or proposals to limit the types of brands that can avail of child-friendly product placements and sponsorships.