Copyright and Related Rights (Amendment) Bill 2025: Report and Final Stages
Dail Éireann — 2026-01-21
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Aengus Ó Snodaigh (SF), Dublin South-Central

The Minister of State said these amendments are outside the scope of the Bill. Obviously they are not because they have not been ruled out of order. They have been found to be in order. The matter is within the scope of the Bill because we are talking about CMOs representing both the producers and the performers. Part of this has to do with who represents the unrepresented, those who have opted out of the CMOs and who are not tied in. As it currently stands, they are represented by the producers. That is like the employer representing the employee in a labour dispute. It is in some ways bonkers.
The amendment is to set out quite clearly that the CMOs represent the performers in this instance. The reason is tied to the judgment from Ms Justice Costello in which she indicated that the reason she found against RAAP at that stage was that it had not been clearly stated in law. I cited this finding before. It states: "If the legislature had intended to impose upon those performers representation which they had not sought nor consented to, one would expect this to have been clearly stated". This is trying to ensure that it is clearly stated so there is no confusion and it is not the employer representing both sides in disputes. In this case, it ensures that the correct remuneration is given to both sides. We cannot ensure that happens if we have both sides represented by the same person.

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Retrieved: 2026-08-31T01:00:51+00:00
Sitting date: 2026-01-21