A claim by the Irish Council Against Blood Sports that RTE television's new travel programme No Frontiers promoted bullfighting was disputed yesterday by the station.
The council said in a statement that it was dismayed and disappointed that the programme, screened on Thursday evening, saw fit to promote "the barbaric blood sport of bullfighting".
It claimed the presenter, Christy Kenneally, while on a visit to Seville, Spain, stood outside a bullring and declared "in upbeat fashion" that "if your taste is for blood and sand, then the bullfighting takes place here every weekend".
However, in a statement RTE said: "RTE does not accept that such a reference could be interpreted in any way as an endorsement of bullfighting, and it was certainly not intended as such by the programme-makers, who have produced a series of the highest quality."