RTE is likely to abandon party political broadcasts for referendums as a result of yesterday's Supreme Court ruling, according to sources within the organisation.
While RTE has declined to comment until it has had time to study the ruling in detail, sources within E the organisation said the elimination of uncontested broadcasts was the "safest and most logical" response.
Mr Anthony Coughlan, who took the case against RTE, welcomed the result as "an important victory for democracy".
"If I had lost this case and the Supreme Court had said that inequality in free broadcasts is OK because political parties have special privileges - the right to address their members, the right to articulate their opinion, and so on - it would have opened the legal path to inequality of public funding down the road, and it's quite clear from the Attorney General's submission that political parties had been hoping to get that result.
"Effectively, if we had lost, it would have enabled the Government to get round the McKenna judgment by the back door," said Mr Coughlan, a senior lecturer in social policy at Trinity College Dublin. He said the Government should now enshrine in law the principle of equal funding in referendums by drawing up legislation.
He added that while the 1995 divorce referendum could not be revisited, as any challenge to the result had to take place within a fortnight, it was clear that it "was won by the mis-expenditure of public funds".
The Green Party MEP, Ms Patricia McKenna, described the Supreme Court decision as "a major victory for the principles of fairness and equality". She said it "copper-fastened" the landmark 1995 case which she took against the Government.
As a result of this case, the Government was prevented from using public money to advance one side of the divorce referendum campaign.
Mr Donncha O'Connell, director of the Irish Council for Civil Liberties, criticised the Broadcasting Complaints Commission for not resolving the matter satisfactorily when Mr Coughlan first complained and said it was "regrettable" that he had to pursue the case through the courts.
Mr Kevin Healy, RTE's director of public affairs, said the ruling "raised very serious questions about how we cover referenda in the future. "We will be considering our options over the next few days after we have time to study it in full."
He declined to comment on whether RTE would now abolish uncontested broadcasts for referendums. However, sources within the organisation said such a move would be likely.
Uncontested broadcasts accounted for just 2 per cent of RTE's coverage of the divorce referendum, and in previous referendums there were no such broadcasts.
"So it will have little impact on our coverage if we get rid of them," said one RTE executive.
