The Green Party has initiated a High Court challenge to RTÉ's refusal to provide live TV coverage of the party's ardfheis on March 1st and 2nd.
Yesterday, the party secured leave to seek, in judicial review proceedings, an order directing RTÉ to broadcast live TV coverage of the party's ardfheis "comparable to the coverage it makes available to political parties of at least equivalent political stature - the Labour Party, Progressive Democrats and Sinn Féin". The matter was adjourned to Thursday by Mr Justice O'Donovan.
After the legal application, the Green Party's general secretary, Mr Stiofán Nutty, said in a statement that they had been left with no alternative but to take legal action. "We are extremely disappointed that RTÉ senior management were not prepared to meet us halfway on this most important issue." RTÉ management had made it quite clear that it was not prepared to negotiate, it was stated.
RTÉ guidelines regarding TV coverage of political parties' ardfheiseanna stipulated that a political party must have received 5 per cent of the vote and/or have seven TDs in the Dáil. Mr Nutty said that RTÉ was now adhering to those strict guidelines although the Green Party had six TDs and two MEPs and despite the fact that RTÉ had changed its own guidelines after the 1997 general election to accommodate the PDs.
As matters stood under the RTÉ guidelines, Fianna Fáil, Fine Gael, Labour, the PDs and Sinn Féin would receive live coverage of their annual conferences, it was argued. The Green Party was the only main national political party which was being excluded.
Dr Michael Forde SC, for the Green Party, said that other comparable political parties included Labour with 21 Dáil seats; the PDs with eight seats and Sinn Féin with five seats. Labour had one MEP, the Greens had two and Sinn Féin had none. To date, RTÉ had provided live TV coverage for some of the parties, and it appeared that it would continue to do so for the foreseeable future.
In an affidavit, Mr Nutty said that the Green Party had been informed by Mr Peter Feeney, of RTÉ, that the station would not provide live TV coverage of the ardfheis. This decision had followed lengthy negotiations between party members and RTÉ employees. The apparent basis for Mr Feeney's decision was the criteria that there should be at least seven TDs or at least 5 per cent of the national vote in the last general election.
Mr Nutty said that the measure used by RTÉ was far too crude and inflexible and therefore unlawful. RTÉ had also departed from these criteria.
As an example, before the last general election, the PDs had fewer than seven TDs and less than 5 per cent of the vote, but that party's annual conference still received live TV coverage. The PDs returned four TDs and had 4.7 per cent of the national vote and RTÉ gave the party a reduced 30-minute live coverage slot.
RTÉ had not offered any reasonable alternative to a live TV broadcast of the Green Party's ardfheis, Mr Nutty said. He had no good reason to be confident that it would get the amount of broadcast coverage which was warranted in comparison with the coverage of the ardfheiseanna of other parties.