Mixed reaction to Minister's ban on broadcasting religious adverts

There has been mixed reaction to a decision by the Minister for Communications, Mr Ahern, to uphold a ban on religious advertising in the broadcast media.

The Power to Change campaign director, Mr Paddy Monaghan, said last night they were "very disappointed" by the decision.

A review of the ban was initiated by the Mr Ahern in October 2002 when RTÉ decided not to carry Power to Change advertising. It also followed controversy over the banning of broadcast advertising for the weekly Irish Catholic newspaper. "The apparent reason for this decision is that the Department could not draw up a more flexible system of regulation and was afraid that some religious group with a lot of finance could dominate the broadcast media," Mr Monaghan said.

He said religious advertising was allowed in the UK and that safeguards there had been sufficient to prevent any abuse.

"Given the contentious nature of religion in Northern Ireland, it is ironic that UTV had absolutely no difficulty in broadcasting the Power to Change ads in full,," he said. "We note that RTÉ, Network 2, TV3 and TG4 have no problem in broadcasting ads from the informal spiritualities, e.g. tarot cards, horoscopes, psychic services, astrology etc, and don't consider them as infringing Section 20 (4) of the Broadcasting Act 1960. At the same time they refuse to broadcast ads from the formal spiritualities as represented by the main religions in Ireland. This is grossly unfair," he said.

However, the Irish Humanists' Association welcomed the decision, describing it as "very wise". The association's vice president, Mr Dick Spicer, said it would have been an impossible situation to expect State and advertising authorities to arbitrate on religious claims. It would have been "such a can of worms".