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The Broadcasting (Major Events Television Coverage) (Amendment) Bill 2003 has been passed by both Houses of the Oireachtas (Parliament). The Act is in response to the long-running controversy over the sale by the Football Association of Ireland (FAI) of the rights to live coverage of Ireland's home soccer matches to Sky Television for showing on a pay-per-view basis. An Act of 1999 allowed the Minister for Communications to draw up a list of designated events for showing on free-to-air television, but that was not done until 2002 when the FAI/Sky deal provided the impetus (see IRIS 2002-10: 9)....

The national film institutes of the 15 Member States of the European Union have made a common declaration on the importance of State aid for European films. This is the first time the film institutes have made a common statement. The national film institutes are publicly funded and were founded to support national and European film culture. In this common declaration the institutes express their concerns regarding the necessity for State aid for European films. The institutes are worried that the audio-visual sector in Europe will be left solely to the chances of free market forces. In the declaration,...

The issue of religious advertising on radio and television arose again in Ireland towards the end of 2002. Ironically, it happened at a time when a hearing was pending before the European Court of Human Rights in the Roy Murphy case (see IRIS 1998-1: 6 and IRIS 1998-7: 9). The hearing in that case, which involved an advertisement for the showing of a video about the Resurrection, took place in November 2002, and the decision of the European Court of Human Rights is expected in February 2003. The ban on religious advertising had formed part of earlier broadcasting legislation but was modified slightly...

Defamation law in Ireland is based on the Defamation Act, 1961 and proposals for updating it were made by the Law Reform Commission in 1991. Since then, reform of defamation law has been on the programme of successive governments. At the end of 2001 the Government agreed the outline of a new Bill. A general election held in May 2002 returned the same parties to government, and their legislative programme lists the new Defamation Bill at No. 36 and states that an outline has been agreed and that the text of the Bill is currently being drafted. The new Minister for Justice, Equality and Law Reform...

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,...