Deaf people's association aims to get subtitles on 50% of TV programmes

Over the next few weeks you may come across posters showing Eamon Dunphy on a television screen with his mouth gagged.

Over the next few weeks you may come across posters showing Eamon Dunphy on a television screen with his mouth gagged.

At the bottom of the screen are what look like subtitles. It says: "Why am I not subtitled?" The posters are part of a campaign launched this week by the National Association for Deaf People calling for changes to the Broadcasting Bill.

They are lobbying for an amendment that obliges Irish television stations to provide subtitling on a minimum of 50 per cent of all programme output.

The poster campaign will include a postcard petition urging local TDs and senators to support such an amendment.

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A subtitling service, available through teletext, is widely regarded as an essential part of TV viewing for many people who are deaf or hearing impaired.

The lack of an adequate TV subtitling service on RTE has long been a contentious issue for Irish deaf people, who complain that despite having to pay the full TV licence fee, only a small proportion of RTE's output is subtitled and is therefore inaccessible to them.

In the UK, broadcasting legislation currently obliges television stations to provide 50 per cent of all programmes with subtitles (due to be raised by amendment to 70 per cent).

Although several approaches to the Government and RTE have been made by organisations representing deaf people, they say the Government's concessions on the issue do not go far enough.

The Minister for Arts, Heritage, Gaeltacht and the Islands, Ms de Valera, is to devolve responsibility for subtitling policy to the new Broadcasting Commission of Ireland, which is to replace the Independent Radio and Television Commission under the Broadcasting Bill.

Under Section 15, the new commission will be asked to set targets for "a specified percentage of programmes aimed at promoting the enjoyment and understanding of the deaf and hard of hearing".

Mr Niall Keane, chief executive of the NADP, says between 70,000 and 100,000 people in Ireland depend on subtitling to enjoy television, otherwise it's just "pictures with no sound". After years of promises by RTE to improve the service, he says the only way to resolve the issue is through legislation.

The Irish Deaf Society says it has been campaigning on the same issue for the past two years, and that while it agrees in principle with the NADP's campaign, it is a case of too little, too late.

Mr Kevin Stanley, chairman of the IDS, says it was aware of the Broadcasting Bill over two years ago and lobbied local TDs to take their case to Ms de Valera, resulting in the amendment to Section 15.

Despite a push for further amendments, the Minister rejected its arguments.

On Thursday, speaking on The Last Word programme with Eamon Dunphy on Today FM, Mr Cathal Goan, RTE's director of television, agreed that the NADP campaign was just.

He admitted that RTE's subtitling equipment had been faulty over the last few months and that while the subtitling service had expanded, it had not expanded quickly enough.

The station is currently tendering for a new live subtitling service, which will include subtitling for the news.