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Following the publication of draft media merger guidelines in December 2014 (see IRIS 2015-2/24), the Minister for Communications, Energy and Natural Resources has now published the final version of the Guidelines on Media Mergers. The guidelines are made under the Competition and Consumer Protection Act 2014, which significantly reforms the law on media mergers in Ireland, and provides that the communications minister may publish guidelines on the operation of the Act (see IRIS 2015-2/23). The final guidelines “broadly reflect” the draft guidelines, but with a number of significant amendments,...

The compliance committee of the Broadcasting Authority of Ireland (BAI) has held that the public broadcaster RTÉ did not violate broadcasting rules during a programme on the purchase of abortion pills online. A complaint had been made over an October 2014 broadcast of RTÉ’s investigative programme ‘Prime Time’, claiming the programme breached the Broadcasting Code’s rules on fairness and objectivity, and the Broadcasting Act’s prohibition on promoting or inciting crime. The Prime Time programme first featured a pre-recorded report, where a reporter explained how a group had been advertising the...

On 21 May 2015, a High Court judge granted an injunction preventing the public broadcaster RTÉ from broadcasting confidential banking information concerning an Irish businessman. The judge announced that he would publish a “redacted” judgment at a later date and ruled that some of his conclusions could not be reported by the media until lawyers agreed on which parts of the judgment should be redacted. The 48-page redacted judgment was published on 3 June 2015. But, on 29 May 2015 and before the redacted judgment was published, a Member of Parliament disclosed some of the confidential banking information...

On 1 May 2015, the Minister for Communications, Energy and Natural Resources announced a public consultation on the possible designation of additional sports events on free-to-air television (for a previous consultation, see IRIS 2014-7/25). Section 162 of the Broadcasting Act 2009 provides that the Minister may, by order, designate events of major importance to society, coverage of which can be provided by free-to-air broadcasters in the public interest. Under the Act, the Minister may also determine whether coverage should be available on a live, deferred or both live and deferred basis. The...

On 25 March 2015, the Broadcasting Authority of Ireland published its new Guidelines in Respect of Coverage of Referenda. The Guidelines set out rules and advice for broadcasters in their coverage of two referenda set to take place in May 2015 (the first proposing allowing same-sex marriage and the second proposing a reduction in the age of eligibly for presidential candidates). The new Guidelines replace the previous Guidelines in Respect of Coverage of Referenda, issued in 2013 and 2011 (see IRIS 2013-8/27 and IRIS 2011-9/24). Rule 27 of the Authority’s Code of Fairness, Objectivity and Impartiality...