Alice-Mary Higgins (Independent) | Oireachtas source

I move amendment No. 140:

In page 58, line 20, to delete “earlier or earliest” and substitute “later or latest”.

Amendment No. 140 seeks to ensure that when a person is making a complaint about two or more unrelated broadcasts, they are only limited by the date of the latest broadcast, not the earliest one. This is to ensure that complainants can seek to end harmful patterns in broadcasting over time. The current wording of the Bill is ambiguous in terms of the definition of “related” or “unrelated” broadcast might be. It seems to suggest that there might need to be an explicit link between broadcasts, for example, if they are part of the same television series, in order to benefit from a provision whereby they are only limited by the date of the latest broadcast. However, what about situations where, for example, a broadcaster permits problematic content in a clear pattern over time, which may come on over multiple shows or even channels? It may amount to a framing of an issue or a person. That content may be replicated in new debates, in debates about the debates, and debates about the responses to the debates. We have seen that and we know how it can happen. That is the concern.

At the moment it is not clear if situations where a topic, for example, or an issue that has been framed in a particular programme, with that framing then becoming a predominant frame that is then replicated across other programmes, would they be considered related broadcasts or not? Similarly, if, for example, we have a documentary one week that shows something inappropriate, a quiz show a week later that then follows up on it and then there is a phone-in show that chooses it as its topic of the day, are these programmes deemed to be unrelated, even though it is the same pattern of material? The current wording would suggest that the complainant would be forbidden from identifying an earlier broadcast if it was outside the time limit, which may be insufficient and lead to a large gap. We know that in actual effect, when something that is kind of harmful or offensive happens, the big dilemma everybody faces all the time is whether you should just ignore the bad thing because you do not want to give it oxygen and you hope it will just not happen again. In multiple instances, we all know that when something that is problematic arises, you know that if you respond, that will become another story. Therefore, you do not respond so it does not get engaged. Yet, sometimes when you ignore something and it is not addressed or made a subject of a complaint, then it happens again and again. The concern I have is that, for example, something that happens that a person chooses not to make a complaint about in the hope that it will not happen again, but then after sometimes even a considerable period of time, it gets dragged up and used again, thereby becoming a problem again. There is a concern that, as it is framed at the moment, that earlier instance, let us say, the spark that started a particular heated debate, topic or framing of an issue is deemed to have fallen outside of the period of relevance.