Suggestions that the copyright on Amhrán na bhFiann should be renewed have been dismissed.

Copyright on the national anthem expired in 2012 and Fianna Fáil Senator Mark Daly has introduced legislation aimed at giving it legal protection.

He claims it’s needed so the anthem isn’t used inappropriately.

But UCD law professor Eoin O’Dell, says that respect is not the function of copyright:”

The function of copyright is to incentivise the production of cultural value and to reward the production of cultural value so that we all get the benefit of the things that are produced by the authors, poets and musicians, and then when it falls out of copyright we can all use it.

“And the second thing is that, it’s not just attempting to legislate respect by means of copyright, he’s actually trying censorship by means of copyright, which is not what copyright is about.”