The European Parliament in Brussels has said it may yet seek broadcast time in Ireland for a controversial advertisement to encourage voting in the EU elections which features a woman baring a nipple.
The filmed advert, by the European Parliament's audio-visual department, includes an image of a suckling baby trying to decide which of its mother's breasts to feed from - a symbolic representation of voters at the polls on June 11th.
The head of the Parliament's office in Dublin, Mr Jim O'Brien, confirmed yesterday his original decision not to broadcast the advert was under review after an intervention from the Parliament's Brussels office. "I was contacted and asked to make inquiries about the possibility of taking slots and the possible cost of the slots," he said.
Mr O'Brien said broadcasters had indicated this week that slots were available. He said he passed the information on to Brussels but had yet to receive a response.
Mr O'Brien decided last week that the film should not be shown after he deemed it inappropriate for broadcast "in an Irish context". But a Brussels-based spokesman for the Parliament said yesterday this move "was to a certain extent a personal decision".
Stating that Brussels may yet decide to seek airtime for the advert here, the spokesman said there was no significance to the absence of a response this week to the information on slot availability. "It certainly doesn't mean that by our silence we don't want to do any more."
An RTÉ spokeswoman said she was unable to comment about the likelihood of its channels broadcasting the advert because nobody at the station had seen it.
A TV3 spokeswoman said she was unaware of any contact from the Parliament or its representatives about the availability of slots.
Mr O'Brien said last week the images would be appropriate only if they were promoting something of a medical or scientific nature.
He said then that it was not appropriate to use such an image to promote anything else, "even something as important as democracy".
In Britain, the offending nipple was removed from the advert amid claims by an advertising standards body that it was "too graphic".
Excluding Denmark and Luxembourg, it will be broadcast in full in all other EU states.
