The Broadcasting Authority of Ireland (BAI) has upheld eight complaints, all relating to RTÉ’s New Year’s Eve countdown show on December 31, 2020.

The complainants all took issue with a satirical news sketch by Waterford Whispers which depicted God being convicted of sexual crimes.

One viewer said it was “offensive in the extreme” and it appeared to be “an international and targeted insulted at a group of people who hold Christian beliefs.”

The complainant noted the fact the sketch was pre-recorded and commissioned in advance, which means this could not have been a mistake on the night.

She said the sketch was broadcast with a “total disregard to a core religious belief of a section of society.”

Furthermore, the viewer alleged a former RTÉ news reader lent credence to it by using words like “impregnating against her will” and “young migrant girl”.

The complainant said if this had targeted another group in society like Muslim, Jewish or members of the Traveller and LGBT communities, there would have been a “stampede to the airwaves to condemn it.”

She found it “incredible” that a major organisation with countless producers and editors saw nothing wrong with the item.

It was broadcast on a night with Irish viewers were asked to remain at home due to the Covid restrictions and the potential audience would have been bigger and more diverse than usual, she noted.

Another complainant said the sketch was “offensive” and believed it amounted to “stirring up hatred against a religious group and it puts people of the Catholic religion at a disadvantage.”

In its response, RTÉ noted the sketch was reviewed by its Editorial Standards Board on January 7 and it found that it did not comply with its own statutory and regulatory requirements.

As a result, RTÉ made a voluntary disclosure of non-compliance to the BAI and decided not to contest any of the complaints it got about the sketch.

RTÉ director general Dee Forbes issued an apology for the segment on January 7 which was widely broadcast while the sketch was also removed from the RTÉ Player.

The sketch reported God was “the latest figure to be implicated in ongoing sexual harassment scandals.”

It showed a scene outside a courthouse of a garda manhandling a handcuffed person into a van while the person, who is depicted as God, shouted: “That was 2,000 years ago.”

The news reader states, “The five-billion-year-old stood accused of forcing himself on a young Middle Eastern migrant, allegedly impregnating her against her will, before being sentenced to two years in prison, with the last 24 months suspended.”

Directly following the sketch, an image of disgraced movie producer Harvey Weinstein was shown on screen.

Considering the complaint, the BAI’s compliance committee concluded the segment did not respect general community standards.

It said the likely offence caused to the audience was not justified for creative, editorial or any other reasons.

The most recent decision by the BAI saw it upholding a further nine complaints about a range of programmes while 11 complaints were rejected.