The Government is expected to move to repeal Section 31 of the Broadcasting Act, which was used to ban Sinn Fein from the airwaves for two decades, to underline further its confidence in the permanence of the IRA ceasefire.
The Minister for Arts, Heritage, Gaeltacht and the Islands, Ms de Valera, will shortly seek Cabinet approval for an amendment to this effect to the Broadcasting Bill, which is currently before the Oireachtas. The Bill is expected to begin its committee stage before the end of this year and be enacted in 2001.
A spokesman for the Minister confirmed the planned move yesterday, saying that it represented a further step arising from the peace process. He pointed out that there would still be measures by which paramilitaries and their supporters could be banned from the airwaves, as the new Bill prohibited the broadcasting of material regarded as likely to incite crime or undermine the State.
Section 31 gives the Minister power to prohibit the RTE Authority from broadcasting "any particular matter or matter of any particular class". It was amended in 1976 on the initiative of the then minister, Dr Conor Cruise O'Brien, to allow the minister to prohibit anything which, in his opinion, "would be likely to promote, or incite to crime, or would tend to undermine the authority of the State . . ."
Dr O'Brien then issued a directive, renewed and amended by subsequent ministers, banning interviews or reports of interviews with spokespersons for named organisations.