Sinn Féin to introduce bill to end second-class treatment of audiences in North by RTÉ – Aengus Ó Snodaigh TD & Joanna Byrne TD
Tuesday 24th June 2025, 14:43 pm
Sinn Féin members of the Joint Oireachtas Committee on Arts, Media, Culture, Communications and Sport, Aengus Ó Snodaigh TD and Joanna Byrne TD, have been granted leave to introduce their Broadcasting (All Ireland Service) (Amendment) Bill 2025 at first stage in the Dáil this week.
Teachta Ó Snodaigh said:
“I am delighted that the Broadcasting (All Ireland Service) Bill has been deemed in order for introduction after a year of being scrutinised by the Oireachtas Bills Office to ensure it complies with Dáil Standing Orders.
“I submitted the Bill in July 2024 at a time when RTÉ had taken a decision to exclude Six County audiences from access to live news bulletins just as athletes from the Six Counties were set to enthrall the nation as part of Team Ireland at the Paris Olympics and in Armagh’s winning performance at the All-Ireland Men’s Senior Football Final.
“While it was welcome that RTÉ rowed back on that decision following a protest from my colleague Dáire Hughe, Sinn Féin MP for Newry and Armagh, this was just one in a long line of examples of RTÉ not providing equal service to audiences in the North.
“RTÉ also held an audience competition to win tickets to watch that Final, but Armagh viewers were barred from taking part. Repeated instances of the Six Counties being erased by RTÉ from the map of Ireland add insult to injury.
“This bill aims to ensure the Six Counties are never again erased by RTÉ, whether in graphic form, by exclusion from audience competitions or by being geo-blocked from content.
Teachta Byrne, added:
“This bill delivers on Sinn Féin’s general election manifesto commitment to end the geo-blocking and exclusion of Six County audiences in public service broadcasting, and I call on all TDs and parties who care about our shared island present and future to back our bill.
“RTÉ is already obliged under the Broadcasting Act of 2009 to make its service ‘available, in so far as it is reasonably practicable, to the whole community on the island of Ireland’, but its actions have not lived up to this aspiration.
“Bunreacht na hÉireann is very clear in Article 2 that ‘It is the entitlement and birthright of every person born in the island of Ireland, which includes its islands and seas, to be part of the Irish Nation’, but full participation is hindered when RTÉ denies access to the cultural, political, social, or sporting news and life of the nation.
“This bill would place an onus on national broadcasters to make every reasonable effort to end this exclusion, and would also require Coimisiún na Meán and the Communications Minister to identify and work to overcome licencing barriers to All Ireland service in broadcast media.”
