The National Union of Journalists has called on the Broadcasting Commission of Ireland (BCI) to immediately explain why it allegedly intervened to "prevent the broadcast of legitimate news stories which it deems potentially embarrassing to the Fianna Fail/PD Government".
In a statement this evening, the NUJ's Irish Secretary Mr Séamus Dooley said a number of stations had received phone calls from the BCI complaining that news stories broadcast this morning were in breach of the moratorium on election coverage in the run-up toelections.
Mr Dooley said the stories include news relating to a statement by SIPTU on decentralisation, industrial action by the NBRU and the reported changes in Garda Síochána manning levels.
"On the face of it this appears to be a heavy-handed approach by the BCI which confuses news and election coverage. By this logic no news should be broadcast in the run-up to elections and radio stations may just as well go off-air. That was never the intention of the original BCI guidelines," Mr Dooley said.
Mr Dooley called on the chairman and chief executive of the BCI to clarify if these alleged interventions arose as a result of requests from the Fianna Fáil party or the Government Information Service.
The Labour Party leader Mr Pat Rabbitte criticised the alleged intervention by the BCI, stating it was a "ridiculously rigid and inflexible interpretation of the 24-hour moratorium that has previously been applied purely to coverage related directly to the elections.
"RTE has never found it necessary to interpret the moratorium in this way and it has not led to any cases of bias," Mr Rabbitte said.
"Regardless of the moratorium, news stories continue to break and all the media should be able to cover them regardless of whether or not they might cause embarrassment to the government."
The BCI could not be contacted for comment this evening.