Some of you readers may already know this little story, but when Paula was home on maternity leave, the community mother for our area informed Paula of an advert been filmed in Ardmore studios (which are across the road from us), and the production company were looking for babies between the ages of 4 months and 10 months to be in the ad.

I was not to keen on it at first but since I knew the director of the ad quite well I knew it would be a great advert.

Ok babies and tv advert what do you get?

Thats right the trocaire lentern campaign that, well up to yesterday, was airing a heck of a lot. Yesterday the advert was pulled from tv and radio. The weirder thing is that normally when I hear this happening in adland as I like to call it, it is the national station RTE that would normally kick up a fuss. In this instance it is Today FM who called the shots. Even more interesting is that RTE self regulate themselves and so are continuing to run the advert whereas everyone else has been instructed by the BCI to pull the ad.

The reason the BCI felt the need to pull the ad was

Following detailed consideration...it is the commission's initial view that the advertisement is contrary to Section 10(3) of the Radio and Television Act, 1988, which prohibits advertising directed towards a political end.

Now I have not heard the advert on radio but from what I can gather it includes a section encouraging members of the public to access the charity's website to donate online or order a Trocaire box.

The website in turn asks individuals to participate in the campaign for gender equality by signing a petition lobbying the Irish Government to enact a specific UN resolution on the issue.

So the petition is the problem! But thats on the website not the adverts what the hell!

For fucks sake its lent. Ever since I was a kid in school, the lentern campaign was a huge money earner for the charity Trocaire. Now that the ad is off air they have lost a vital message for people to donate. Ireland used to be an amazing country for donating to charity now we have charity adverts banned, Fucking ridiculous.

I have seen a lot of crazy decisions over adverts before but this takes the mick, not only that what about my daughters staring role on TV taken away from her over a petition which is not even advertised on radio or TV.

In case you are wondering Rebecca is the baby who raises her hand up near the start and you can see her at the end second row down, last to the right.

Did you know it only takes 2 complaints in Ireland to get an advert checked out, madness.