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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,...

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...