MCUI Ulster Centre chairman Jack Agnew issued a statement to the News Letter in response to leading sponsor Adelaide Insurance Services’ threat to withdraw funding from key events in Northern Ireland.

The company is concerned that a new £60 press accreditation fee levied on photographers could lead to reduced media coverage of press conferences in protest at the charge - a stance already adopted by the Newtownards Chronicle.

Agnew’s statement is in full below:

“The fee was discussed and the decision was agreed at the Inter Centre Conference and no-one was against it. The Management Committee of the Ulster Centre had a meeting last night (Monday) and basically Rule 14 in the Constitution states that anything that is decided at the Inter Centre Conference can’t be changed unless a specially convened meeting is held.

“But we are quite willing to discuss it with the relevant people and make changes for next year. There is no point in breaking your own rules once a decision has been made and as chairman of the Ulster Centre I am not prepared to do that because it is unfair to those people who come to committee meetings every week, sit down and make the rules, to all of a sudden make a change.

“I certainly don’t want to lose press coverage because the press are very good to us and we will have meetings with the press to look at costs and come to an agreement for 2013. We have made this decision to try and ensure that the photographers at our events are properly accredited and because we want to reduce the number of photographers at events.

“I want to also point out that every photographer who is signed on at an event has public liability cover worth £5m. To get that type of cover would cost you in the region of £150 to £200 from an insurance company. We as a centre are supplying that cover to photographers free of charge and the fee that we have applied to the pass is aimed at offsetting some of the costs to us.

“We didn’t take this decision lightly and it went through the Ulster Centre Tarmac Committee – and the members of the IMPA (Irish Motorcycle Photographers Association) were there – then it went to the Commission and the Inter Centre conference, when a unanimous decision was made.

“There are alternative ways we could reduce the number of photographers, for example by making the accreditation process more stringent, and that is what we will look at for next year.

“But we will not reverse our decision this year although we will look at it again for 2013.”


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