Some politicians may think there is no such thing as excessive publicity, but Waterford's city councillors are not among their number.
Since last autumn listeners to the WLR FM radio station have been treated to recorded highlights of the monthly meetings of Waterford city council, with the station carrying extracts from lively debates on its hourly news bulletins.
Six months into the experimental broadcasts, however, councillors voted at a closed meeting to revert to the previous arrangements. Once again, WLR reporters will have to wait for meetings to finish to get their soundbites from council members.
Only The Workers' Party, which holds three of the council's 15 seats, opposed the decision. It seems to have the public on its side. Ms Liz Reddy, WLR's head of news, said the station received 170 calls to its Deise AM discussion programme after the decision was made public. Only two of the callers were in favour of ending the broadcasts.
"Interviewing politicians after the meetings are over is not the same," Ms Reddy said. "Most people would never get to a corporation meeting in their lives, but with the broadcasts they felt more involved in the political process."
Council members who voted to discontinue the recordings blamed certain fellow councillors who, they claimed, had abused the facility by "playing to the gallery" to guarantee publicity. Mr Maurice Cummins of Fine Gael said it seemed those "who shouted loudest got the most coverage".
A recommendation that the broadcasts be discontinued was made by the council's procedures committee and passed by 11 votes to three at a meeting of the full council held in committee. One Fianna Fail councillor, Ms Mary Roche, was not present.
Mr Pat Hayes of Labour had voted in favour of the experiment last year but supported its discontinuance. "The city was not well served by the kind of rows being generated," he said.
Mr John Halligan of the Workers' Party said "frivolous and silly excuses" had been offered for ending the broadcasts. It was well known, he said, that members of his party were the "best performers" at council meetings and took an active part in all discussions. "I think it's a negative and backward step at a time when people are looking for openness and transparency in politics."
Ms Reddy said it was not true that the recordings had altered the way some councillors approached meetings. She said WLR had still not been informed of the decision by the corporation.
The station expects to be allowed to broadcast next month's meeting of the city council. It plans to continue broadcasting highlights of meetings of Waterford County Council, which opened its doors to the station more than a year ago.
Meanwhile, Mr Cummins, a Fine Gael candidate in the next election, won't be proposing to ban the cameras from Dail Eireann should he be elected. "The two situations are not comparable," he said.