The Advertising Standards Authority of Ireland has upheld a complaint against Ryanair on an advertisement for the airline which depicted the Minister for Public Enterprise as a gun-wielding cowgirl.
The authority decided the advertisement, which bore the slogan "Welcome to Dublin, this is a stick up!", breached the requirement "that advertisers should not unfairly attack or discredit other businesses or their products".
The advertisement claimed that Ireland lost low return fares to European destinations because of Ms O'Rourke and the Department. It accused them of putting Aer Rianta's profits ahead of the consumer.
A member of the public also complained about the use of the headline Exhilarating Power in an advertisement for Saab cars. The complaints committee found the initial expression to be an opinion of the advertiser and could not be assessed objectively.
In relation to the phrase "total control", it took into account the advertiser's claim that the expression related to control over the engine. However, the committee upheld the complaint, stating that when reading the advertisement as a whole, consumers could be expected to assume that the claim of "total control" applied to the illustrated car and not just the engine.