CABLELINK Ltd was yesterday granted a High Court order preventing the rebroadcasting of multi-channel television services to about 4,000 households in the Dunmore East and surrounding areas in Co Waterford.
Mr Justice O'Sullivan, however, put a six-month stay on the interlocutory injunction prohibiting the rebroadcasting service provided by Coastal Multi Systems, Ballinmintra, Dunmore East. The judge said he was very conscious of the fact that the defendant had been providing services to about 4,000 households for a long number of years and believed that had the effect of creating an equilibrium between the parties. It would, however, be difficult for the court to refuse an order where there was no doubt that the law had been broken.
The judge granted Cablelink an order restraining Coastal Multi Systems Ltd from rebroadcasting or transmitting any television signal otherwise than in accordance with the Wireless (Telegraphy) Act 1926 and the Broadcasting Wireless (Telegraphy) 1988.
Mr Justice O'Sullivan refused to grant Cablelink an order restraining the defendants from broadcasting a signal from a mast at Harristown, Gaultiere, Co Waterford. As the development had been in position for more than five years there was no jurisdiction for him to do so, he said.
Mr Anthony Power, company director of Coastal Multi Systems, said in an affidavit that he first became involved in the provision of multi-channel television services in Dunmore East around 1980 - some 14 years before Cablelink obtained its MMDS licence and some nine years before the Wireless Telegraphy (Television Programme Retransmission) Regulations 1989 were made by the Minister for Communications.
Mr Power said he had sought a licence and urged the court to adjourn the proceedings pending the determination of his application by the Minister for Public Enterprises.
Mr Patrick Glennon, company secretary of Cablelink Ltd, said it was almost impossible to calculate the loss of profits Cablelink was likely to suffer in the Waterford area as a result of the activities of the defendants.
He claimed that in the absence of the defendants' service, 5,000 households would subscribe to Cablelink. That represented an annual loss of Pounds 750,000.
He claimed that if Cablelink was unable to ensure that the law was enforced against illegal operators, the Pounds 7 million investment it had made in its MMDS system would be undermined and its ability to commit further investment would be diminished.