Last week, Gardaí visited the offices of Photocall Ireland and served a summons on two staff, a photographer who had photographed a protest and the office manager.

According to the Examiner, the agency had refused to voluntarily hand over images of a protest outside the Department of Justice.

The National Union of Journalists strongly criticised the actions of the gardaí with the secretary stating that it: “raises serious questions about the attitude towards journalists and journalism”.

Photocall editor Eamon Farrell said that it was not the agencies role to become the eyes and ears of the gardaí at protests.

Mr Farrell joined Jonathan Healy on Lunchtime today and he said the guards approached them and asked for "material which we had not put out into the public domain in relation to a protest.

"They may give a wrong impression of exactly what was happening. It's our jobs as journalists to decide are the images we are putting out, do they represent the reality of what happened on the day? Those images that we didn't put out, I'm not saying they wouldn't represent it, but some of them may not have and we have to be very careful about that."

Mr Farrell said his concern about the issue is that journalists need to remain objective and that the public need to continue to know this is the case: "We depend on members of the public understanding that we are objective journalists who record events without fear or favour."

You can listen to the full interview here: