Fintan Warfield (Sinn Fein) | Oireachtas source

I move amendment No. 88:

88.In page 44, between lines 4 and 5, to insert the following:

“Duties to whole community of island of Ireland

8. The Principal Act is amended by the insertion of the following section after section 39:

“Duties to whole community of island of Ireland

39A.RTÉ and Teilifís na Gaeilge as the national public service broadcasters 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 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 exterior coastline.”.”

It is a matter of considerable frustration to citizens in the North when they see the national broadcaster use graphs or maps that exclude some of the island albeit that it is a rare occurrence. We are simply making the point that RTÉ and TG4, the national broadcasters, should depict the whole island, including accompanying information that relates to citizens in the North, when they display maps and graphs.