Mr. Rory Montgomery:

The constitution is clear and refers to the publisher. Basically, it states that any publication that circulates in Ireland or any part of Ireland is entitled to membership. That has been refined a little in terms of practical procedures. The ultimate decision is made by what we call our administrative committee, which is made up of members of the industry and looks after the nuts and bolts of financing and so on. We ask for evidence that the publication actually is a publication, has been in existence for a year or more, has identifiable ownership and can be published. We ask to see copies of the publication and we get other information. There are times when we go back to people and say they have not given us what we need – these things come to the Press Council as a body first – and ask them to tell us more.

That is the bar that is passed. As I said earlier, as a rule it is not up to us to make a judgment as to whether or not a publication is meeting the high standards Ms McKay mentioned earlier. Of course, breaching principles of the code covers all sorts of things. As well as truth and accuracy, there is the mixing of fact and comment, privacy, reporting of suicide and a range of other issues. If there were to be a pattern of consistent breaching of those principles that is something the Press Council would have to carefully consider. That would equally be true if there were a refusal to publish our decisions. Again, that has not happened, thank goodness, although at times publications have been extremely reluctant to publish decisions that go against them.

The basic point is that the mechanisms and machinery will be there to suspend or expel a member or publication. No criteria are set out in detail for that, other than non-payment. It is something we have not had to face until now and I hope we will not have to face it, but we know it is an issue which is there, and we have to keep it in mind.