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On 2 February 2007, a new Communications Regulation (Amendment) Bill, along with an Explanatory and Financial Memorandum, was published. The Bill is intended to amend the Communications Regulation Act 2002, so as to confer additional functions on the Commission for Communications Regulation (ComReg) and to make further provision for the enforcement of the 2002 Act. The primary purpose of the Bill is to increase the enforcement powers of ComReg in order to promote competition in the Irish telecommunications market. The Bill provides ComReg with powers similar to those of the Competition Authority,...

A new Broadcasting (Amendment) Bill, along with an Explanatory and Financial Memorandum, were published on 21 December 2006. The Bill seeks to “establish a more flexible and market-responsive model for licensing DTT in Ireland and to allow for progress to be made towards analogue switch-off”, according to the Explanatory and Financial Memorandum. A further purpose of the Bill is to permit RTÉ (the public service broadcaster) to use public funding to provide a broadcast service for Irish communities abroad (s.3(1)(b)). The Broadcasting Act 2001 (see IRIS 2001-4: 9) was a major piece of legislation,...

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...