Adrian Weckler

There's no administrative fines set up to do that.

If they were to knock on someone's house, even if they knew that they were using a dodgy box, because they'd raided the distributor and they'd seen the payment details, they would have to mount a prosecution, which would end up in a court date.

And that's quite an intensive process.

They do that for the sellers and the distributors.

But if you have four or five hundred thousand households in the country doing that, they're not going to do that.

And they've told me they won't do that.

So what they're pinning their hopes on, what the broadcasters and the sports rights bodies are pinning their hopes on, is that the law changes here to follow Italy in particular, but also Greece and a couple of other countries following suit now.

So that administrative fines, like penalty points, like getting penalty points in the post if your car is caught speeding and you just get a fine.

And if you don't pay the fine, then the guards come around to your house.

So that's what they're hoping will happen in Ireland.

Maybe 2026, but if not 2026, 2027.

Okay.

Yeah, and that's what's slowly happening in Italy.

So thousands of fines have been sent out in Italy since May of last year.

There's a few new waves of fines going out.

As we speak, we are told, as reported in the Italian press.

And it's not just that a distributor gets raided and the lists are perused.

It's the bodies who are allowed to peruse those lists.

So in Ireland...

Any change in the law might, for example, allow Comrec, who is the telecoms regulator, they might be the ones who are allowed to send you out a fine.