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The Communications Regulation Act, 2002 (see IRIS 2002-6: 14), provided for the establishment of a three-person commission to replace the Office of the Director of Telecommunications Regulation (ODTR). A Ministerial Order was issued to enable the new commission to be established on 1 December 2002, the fourth anniversary of the liberalisation of the telecommunications market. The Commission is to be known as ComReg, the Commission for Communications Regulation. Section 11 of the Act states that "[S]ubject to this Act, the Commission shall be independent in the exercise of its functions." However,...

At the end of August 2002, the Director of Telecommunications Regulation and the Competition Authority made a joint submission to the European Commission's Consultation on the Draft Recommendation on Relevant Product and Service Markets within the Electronic Communications Sector (see IRIS Extra: September 2002). While welcoming the Draft Recommendation, the two bodies expressed their apprehension that it did not take into account the various stages of market development in Member States. For example, the later liberalisation of the Irish telecommunications market means that effective competition...

The Forum on Broadcasting, established by the Government in March 2002 (see IRIS 2002-7: 13), reported in August. Many individuals and organisations, including Radio Telefís Éireann (the national public service broadcaster, RTÉ), the Broadcasting Commission of Ireland (BCI) and the Office of the Director of Telecommunications Regulation (ODTR), made written submissions to the Forum. The ODTR set out the current position regarding broadcasting services in Ireland and the future under the new EC Framework Directives. The BCI set out all the relevant statutory provisions and assessed various aspects...

On 15 October 2002, the Minister for Communications, Marine and Natural Resources published a list of major sports events that the Government has approved as events that are of major importance to Irish society and which should continue to be available on free-to-air television services. The Minister has the power to do this under section 2(1) of the Broadcasting (Major Events Television Coverage) Act, 1999, which implements the relevant provisions of the "Television without Frontiers" Directive, but this is the first time that the Minister has used this power. The impetus for the drawing up of...

The Minister for Arts, Heritage, Gaeltacht and the Islands recently announced the establishment of a Forum on Broadcasting. The seven members of the Forum come from broadcasting, business, academic and arts fields. The Minister has directed the Forum to examine a number of topics and to make recommendations on them. The topics concern the roles of public and commercial/independent broadcasting services, and whether these roles differ at national, regional and local levels; the funding of public service broadcasting ("but excluding issues specifically related to the adequacy or otherwise of the...