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On 5 September 2006, the Department of Communications, Marine and Natural Resources published a new wide-ranging Broadcasting Bill. The Bill consists of 129 sections divided into twelve parts and followed by a Schedule. Its purpose is to update the legal framework for broadcasting in Ireland. Part II of the Bill provides for a single content regulator to be called the Broadcasting Authority of Ireland (BAI), which will encompass the existing regulatory functions of the Broadcasting Commission of Ireland (BCI), the RTÉ Authority and the Broadcasting Complaints Commission (BCC). It will also have...

At the end of 2005, the Minister for Justice in a late amendment to the Criminal Justice (Terrorist Offences) Bill added a provision requiring telecom operators to retain data on telephone, mobile and fax calls for a period of three years. Prior to that the requirement had been imposed by direction of the Cabinet, purportedly under a 1983 Act, rather than openly through specific legislation. The lack of transparency, the extent of the retention both in respect of the time period and the range of data have been criticised by successive Data Protection Commissioners (see IRIS 2002-4: 14), ISPs, Digital...

Ireland failed to meet the January 2006 deadline to introduce legislation giving effect to the EC Directive provision on a droit de suite for artists. Instead, Ministerial regulations (European Communities (Artists Resale Right) Regulations, S.I. No. 312 of 2006) were made in June as an interim measure to provide a share of the resale price of all works sold for over EUR 3000. Payments may be made up to EUR 12,500. An Intellectual Property Bill to be introduced before the end of the year will lower the threshold to EUR 1000, and will determine the time limits (the lifetime of the author under the...

On 20 June 2006, new guidelines for the media on covering suicide were issued by the National Office of Suicide Prevention, which is part of the Health Service Executive. Drawn up by experts in the field and support groups such as the Samaritans and the Irish Association of Suicidology, the guidelines aim to promote responsible coverage of suicide and to reduce the risk of “copycat” deaths, estimated in Ireland as 6% of all suicides. The key provisions are designed to prevent glamorising or sensationalising suicide, to ensure, in the words of the Minister of State for Mental Health, “that public...

At the beginning of September 2006, the Broadcasting Commission of Ireland (BCI) launched the third and final phase of the consultation process in the development of a new code of programme standards, as provided for by section 19 of the Broadcasting Act 2001 (see IRIS 2001-4: 9). The draft code includes provision for audience information and guidance by issuing prior warnings for programme material which has the potential to offend, by using the watershed or by implementing an evaluative or descriptive classification system (s.2.2). There are special provisions for the protection of children,...