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A man who made a hoax telephone call to a national radio show on 31 August 2000 was pursued under post office legislation, rather than broadcasting legislation. Irish broadcasting legislation contains numerous provisions concerned with programme content but is aimed at the obligations and responsibilities of broadcasters rather than individual callers. The man telephoned an RTE (the national public service broadcaster) radio chat show, claiming to be the well-known captain of the Galway county hurling team and to be representing his own views and those of the team members. Hurling is a popular...

The Information Society Commission was established by the Irish Government in 1997 to monitor Ireland's progress as an Information Society, to promote awareness of new technology and to advise the government on Ireland's development in this area. Its third and most recent report, compiled in December 2000, assessed Ireland's current position and made recommendations for future development. The Commission highlighted what had been achieved during the three-year period, including: the liberalisation of the telecommunications market, the enactment of the Electronic Commerce Act, 2000 (IRIS 2000-8:...

Section 19.2 of the Refugee Act 1996 came into force in November 2000. It states that the identity of applicants for asylum must not be published in a written publication or broadcast without the consent of both the applicant and the Minister for Justice. A "written publication" is stated to include a film, sound track and any other record in permanent form. Breach of the section is an offence punishable by a fine not exceeding IEP 1,500 and/or by imprisonment for a term not exceeding twelve months. The National Union of Journalists criticised the section as a restriction on the freedom of expression...

Criminal prosecutions for libel are very rare in Ireland (see IRIS 2000-2: 14). However, on March 27, a businessman was convicted of libelling a business competitor on the Internet. He had placed a notice on the Internet indicating that she was providing prostitution services. Following conviction, the defendant offered to pay IEP 10,000 compensation to the victim. The judge, however, deemed it insufficient. In a civil action she would probably be awarded a much higher sum. Sentence will be passed in the coming weeks. The Defamation Act 1961, which contains provisions on criminal libel, provides...

The Supreme Court rejected on 2 February 2001 an appeal against a High Court decision on the awarding of a broadcast licence. The High Court had upheld the decision of the Independent Radio and Television Commission (IRTC) to award a Dublin "youth" radio licence to a consortium called "Spin FM". A rival consortium, "Storm FM" had claimed that there was objective bias against it on the part of a member of the IRTC. The IRTC member had made inquiries to the garda (police) regarding reports of drug abuse in a nightclub owned by a member of the "Storm FM" consortium. The garda responded that they endorsed...