Aengus Ó Snodaigh (Dublin South Central, Sinn Fein) | Oireachtas source

I move amendment No. 45:

In page 45, between lines 26 and 27, to insert the following:

“Duties to the whole community of the island of Ireland

8.The Principal Act is amended by the insertion of the following section after section 39: “Duties to the whole community of the island of Ireland

39A.RTÉ and Teilifís na Gaeilge, as national public service broadcasters with a duty to the whole community of the island of Ireland, shall endeavour to ensure that in the event of any graphic or pictorial representation or map of Ireland that is broadcast or used in a broadcast to depict data or information for the public, every practicable effort is made to present the relevant data for the whole island of Ireland where possible, and shall always, including in cases where data or information for any part of the island cannot be depicted, present the island of Ireland as a geographical whole, maintaining the integrity of its coastline, and refraining in all cases from presenting any jurisdictional boundaries within the island as equivalent to coastline.”.”.

Amendment No. 45 is one of a series of amendments that we have tabled, which deals with a number of issues. In this instance, it concerns the issue, as someone described it to me, of the decapitated teddy bear that appears on the television every now and again. When the map of Ireland appears, suddenly a whole section is removed and the Six Counties do not exist for the purposes of weather forecasts and other programmes. There must be a duty to ensure that the island as a whole is reflected in weather forecasts. People may wish to ignore it, but Ireland is still an island. We should not leave a blank space there. The Six Counties have not disappeared or gone into space. One of the other amendments that was ruled out of order addresses the issue of geoblocking and the RTÉ Player service not extending to parts of the Six Counties. The purpose of amendment No. 45 is to ensure that the national public service broadcaster will have a duty to reflect the island as a whole, and that any graphic or pictorial representation will be faithful, as it were, to the island of Ireland as a geographical whole. As I have said, this amendment is an attempt on our part to ensure that that is reflected. People have been raising the issue for many years. Parts of Ireland disappear as if they do not exist. In the case of geoblocking, those who are accepted as part of the Irish nation under the Constitution have no rights. I do not live in the Border region, but as other Deputies here will be able to attest to, there needs to be a proper approach on a national basis to prevent restrictions and ensure that broadcasting continues throughout the island and that no mechanism is put in place that restricts the national broadcasters from one part of the island to the other.