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TV Licence Inspectors - UK versus Irish system?

  • 18-08-2018 10:54am
    #1
    dense
    Closed Accounts Posts: 2,175 ✭✭✭


    There is a number of videos on Youtube of UK licence inspectors receiving dogs abuse on the doorstep whilst trying to ascertain whether the occupants have a TV, and a lot of it seems to have be of the Freeman of the Land nature.




    What are the powers of a TV licence inspector here regarding verifying whether there's a TV in the property for example? Or whether the person they are speaking to on the doorstep is the person who is responsible for licensing the TV?

    If one doesn't engage here/tries it on about recording the inspector, asking for their surname etc. what happens next?

    NB I'm just interested in the legal process, not the pros and cons of licensing the apparatus or whether anyone thinks it's value for money etc.


Comments

  • #2
    Under His Eye
    Closed Accounts Posts: 907 ✭✭✭Under His Eye


    If one doesn't engage here/tries it on about recording the inspector, asking for their surname etc. what happens next?
    Nothing.

    They fully depend on the person making unguarded admissions as to guilt.

    You can even send Capita a letter telling them that they have no right of access to the property. Nothing Capita/BBC can do.


  • #3
    gizmo555
    Closed Accounts Posts: 2,948 ✭✭✭gizmo555


    Under His Eye wrote: »
    They fully depend on the person making unguarded admissions as to guilt.

    Don't know about the UK, but in Ireland you can by written notice be required to make a written and signed declaration as to whether you have a TV. Failure to make the declaration or making a false declaration is an offence.

    So, while you may not have to answer the licence inspector's questions when he calls to your door, if you don't it could be followed up in this way.


  • #4
    dense
    Closed Accounts Posts: 2,175 ✭✭✭dense


    gizmo555 wrote: »
    Don't know about the UK, but in Ireland you can by written notice be required to make a written and signed declaration as to whether you have a TV. Failure to make the declaration or making a false declaration is an offence.

    So, while you may not have to answer the licence inspector's questions when he calls to your door, if you don't it could be followed up in this way.


    In Ireland the powers of entry to any property appears quite straightforward. And also "any" person at the premises is deemed the occupier IIRC.

    But I don't know how it's done in practice, if they are refused initial entry do they come back with gardai?
    Or with their power of entry, can they not simply shoulder their way in?
    If they can't, it doesn't seem to be of much use....



    In other words do they get rings run around them like what apparently happens in the UK. The UK videos only show one side of the story, we don't know whether there were subsequent prosecutions.


  • #5
    Carawaystick
    Registered Users, Registered Users 2 Posts: 8,779 ✭✭✭Carawaystick


    gizmo555 wrote: »
    Don't know about the UK, but in Ireland you can by written notice be required to make a written and signed declaration as to whether you have a TV. Failure to make the declaration or making a false declaration is an offence.
    Has this been challenged in court?
    under Art 41.6.1.i
    The State guarantees liberty for the exercise of
    the following rights, subject to public order and
    morality: –
    i The right of the citizens to express freely
    their convictions and opinion

    If I don't want to express if I have a license or not, can I be compelled to?
    Is there not a right to remain silent on this issue?


  • #6
    Peregrinus
    Registered Users, Registered Users 2 Posts: 26,984 ✭✭✭✭Peregrinus


    There's no right of silence here. The law has long accepted that there are some regulatory provisions where it is trivial for you to show that you are in compliance, but difficult for the authorities to prove that you are not. For example, you can be required to produce your motor insurance certificate (which is easy for you to do, if you have one). If there was no such requirement, it would be extremely difficult for the guards to prove that you weren't insured; they would have to contact every authorised insurer in the EU and obtain confirmation from each of them that they hadn't issued a policy to you.

    It is established that requirements of this kind are not an infringement of the right to silence. Requiring you to produce a television licence, or say if you have a television, fits squarely into this class of requirements.


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  • #7
    GM228
    Registered Users, Registered Users 2 Posts: 8,922 ✭✭✭GM228


    Carawaystick wrote: »
    Has this been challenged in court?
    under Art 41.6.1.i
    The State guarantees liberty for the exercise of
    the following rights, subject to public order and
    morality: –
    i The right of the citizens to express freely
    their convictions and opinion

    If I don't want to express if I have a license or not, can I be compelled to?
    Is there not a right to remain silent on this issue?

    (This is not directed at you Carawaystick - rather for those who actually try that avenue)

    It's odd that those generally who quote the constitution in these matters as an attempt to circumnavigate such regulations regularly conveniently forget to quote the "save in accordance with law" or the "laws, however, may be enacted for the regulation and control in the public interest of the exercise of the foregoing right" parts of the appropriate liberties section of the constitution. Funny that.


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