The State of Us begins tonight on RTE One at 9.40pm and RTE sources say that, while the issue of balance was discussed at the station given the timing so close to the poll, the four-part satire did not have to deal with the same strict constraints that are placed on current affairs programmes at election time.

"You can be very po-faced about it, but a practical decision was taken that once the humour was spread evenly between the government and the opposition [it would be ok], " one source said.

The source added that rather than placing "artificial constraints" on the writers . . . with strict criteria applied to the length of time devoted to each political party as happens in news and current affairs . . . it was more a case of: 'be sensible how you do it'.