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In his budget speech on 5 December 2007, the Minister for Finance announced the retention of film tax reliefs until 2012. The current tax incentive scheme for film and television made in Ireland, which is set out in Section 481 of the Taxes Consolidation Act 1997 (as amended), allows businesses and individuals to offset their investment in film against tax (see IRIS 2001-2: 10 and IRIS 2004-1: 14). The scheme was due to expire in December 2008, so its retention until 2012 is welcomed by the film industry. The Irish Film Board published a rough guide to the scheme in February 2007. The scheme applies...

The Commission has closed its investigation into the financing of the Vlaamse Radio- en Televisieomroep (Flemish Radio and Television Broadcasting – VRT). After complaints from several private competitors were received in 2004, a preliminary investigation on behalf of the Commission had found the VRT financing regime to be in breach of EC Treaty state aid rules. These rules declare subsidies liable to distort competition to be incompatible with the common market (Article 87). The VRT’s funding measures pre-existed the entry into force of the EC Treaty and, therefore, amounted to “existing aid”...

The Council of Europe’s Committee of Ministers’ (CM) latest batch of country-specific Resolutions adopted in the context of the Second Monitoring Cycle of the Framework Convention for the Protection of National Minorities (FCNM) concern: the Russian Federation; Romania; Ireland and Norway. The Resolutions contain a number of provisions concerning the (audiovisual) media (for similar provisions in earlier country-specific Resolutions, see IRIS 2007-3: 6 and IRIS 2006-2: 4). The CM recommends that the Russian authorities “further improve access to the media of persons belonging to national minorities”...

The European Commission against Racism and Intolerance (ECRI) recently made public four new reports as part of its ongoing monitoring process of the laws, policies and practices to combat racism in the Member States of the Council of Europe (for commentary on earlier reports, see IRIS 2006-6: 4 and IRIS 2005-7: 3). Each of the country reports, which examine the situation in: Monaco (for the first time); Azerbaijan (for the second time) and Finland and Ireland (both in the context of the third monitoring cycle), contain specific recommendations concerning the media. In respect of Monaco, the ECRI...

On 18 June 2007, Manhunt 2 became the first video game to be banned by the Irish Film Censor’s Office (IFCO) under the Video Recordings Act 1989 (see IRIS 2001-2: 13). The game was banned due to its high level of “gross, unrelenting and gratuitous violence”. The IFCO stated that “in certain films, DVDs and video games, strong graphic violence may be a justifiable element within the overall context of the work however, in the case of Manhunt 2, the IFCO believes there is no such context, and the level of gross, unrelenting and gratuitous violence is unacceptable”. Video games are expressly exempt...