Mayo and Galway are two of a number of counties being targeted at present in a crackdown on TV ‘dodgy boxes’.
According to today’s Irish Independent, legal warnings against their use are being sent out in seven counties.
The action comes after authorities’ claims that an earlier crackdown this year resulted in several dodgy box operators being shut down.
The counties currently being targeted are Mayo, Galway, Cork, Dublin, Laois, Louth, and Monaghan.
The organisation leading the crackdown, the Federation Against Copyright Theft, says it is working with gardaí on the matter.
A dodgy box is a device that can bypass pay-TV copyright controls illegally. The gadget, often also referred to as an Android box, is sold by individuals around the country, who then also sell codes to access illegally streamed premium sport, movies and other television content.
An EU report into illegal internet protocol television (IPTV) in 2019 found that Ireland has the sixth highest use of dodgy boxes in the EU.
