A community television group in the south-east has demanded an immediate interim licence to allow it to restore foreign channels to thousands of viewers.
South East Community Television (SECT), an amalgamation of four groups which operated deflector systems in south Tipperary, Wexford, Kilkenny and Waterford, says the service could be switched back on tomorrow if a licence was granted.
The four, Coastal Multi-Systems, Comeragh Community Television, Killenaule Community Television and Callan Community Television, had been operating since the early 1980s.
They each shut down at various times in the recent past following legal action by MMDS operators, who sought to protect exclusive franchises awarded to them to transmit in the region.
However, the telecommunications regulator, Ms Etain Doyle, has proposed that competition be introduced to the television transmission sector. She has also said she would favour the short-term licensing of some deflector operators.
Ultimately the Government will decide, but in the meantime SECT wants an interim licence to restore British channels to subscribers who, it claims, have either declined to take the MMDS service or are unable to receive it.
While SECT says it will operate within the law, it is prepared to fight a vigorous campaign to get a licence. It also maintains that it has the backing of local Fianna Fail, Fine Gael and Labour politicians.
"There's a steely determination to see this thing out," says the group's chairman, Mr John Fahey. "We've put an awful lot of time and effort into this and we're determined that we're going to get a licence."
However, any move to license SECT will be strongly resisted by those already granted exclusive MMDS transmission rights. A spokeswoman for Cablelink, which was successfully granted a court injunction last year against Coastal Multi-Systems, said it would "very vigorously oppose" an interim licence for SECT and if necessary all legal options would be considered.
With deflector groups still operating elsewhere in the country, MMDS operators have already filed a statement of claim against the Government, for a figure believed to be over £100 million, claiming it never ensured that licence-holders had exclusivity in their franchise areas.
Ms Mary McCormack of SECT, which claims to have had about 4,500 subscribers, says the Government's denial of licences to deflector groups was wrong and "anti-community".
She says the group had been advised by senior counsel to legally challenge the MMDS operators' monopoly, but preferred to hold out for an interim licence while future licensing policy was being clarified.
"We've covered the country speaking to politicians. The will is there. Once you get used to a better choice of programmes it's very hard to go back to two-channel land."