RTé fears its new political comedy will have to be rescheduled if the government calls an election.

Val Falvey TD, which stars Ardal O'Hanlon, follows the adventures of a hapless midlands politician as he tries to juggle party bosses in Dublin and the needs of his local constituents.

Penned by Father Ted co-creator Arthur Mathews and writer/performer Paul Woodfull, the six-part series is currently halfway through production. RTé is said to be "extremely happy" with early rushes.

However, station chiefs are said to be worried about the scheduling of the comedy, which is due to air on Sunday nights on RTé One from October.

Executives are fearful this could coincide with a general election if the current political instability leads to the collapse of the government or Taoiseach Brian Cowen decides to go to the country early.

An RTé source said: "Clearly there might be an election in the autumn and RTé is going to look very carefully at whether this is the right kind of programme to be showing."

Although the politician portrayed in the comedy is not identified with any particular political party, RTé has been monitoring all its programming since April to ensure it is politically fair in the context of an upcoming election.

An RTé spokesman told the Sunday Tribune: "If there was anything scheduled now in the context of there not being an election, that might be considered to be politically sensitive. We would obviously look at it again and look at the scheduling of it to make sure it didn't in any way unduly influence voters should an election be called."