.ie Digital Town Awards 2024 Terms and Conditions

• These Terms and Conditions govern the operation of the Awards. If you do not accept these Terms and Conditions you are not permitted to enter the Awards on behalf of your town and/or to nominate a Digital Hero.
• The promoter is IE Domain Registry CLG, trading as .ie, with a registered address at 2 Harbour Square, Dún Laoghaire, Co. Dublin, A96 D6R0, Ireland, registered number 315315 (referred to below as “.ie”).
• Entry to these Awards shall be deemed full and unconditional acceptance of these Terms and Conditions.
• Applicants must complete in full the online application form on digitaltownawards.ie. Any entries which are incomplete or lacking sufficient detail or which are otherwise not submitted in accordance with these Terms and Conditions will be disqualified and will not be considered.
• The Closing Date for entries to the Awards is 5.00pm on 1 March 2024. .ie reserves the right to postpone the Closing Date, but the Closing Date is final unless an extension is officially announced on digitaltownawards.ie. Entries received after the Closing Date will not be considered.
• .ie bears no responsibility for late or incomplete entries, or entries which are lost due to a technical error.
• Multiple entries for different digital projects at the same town, village, or urban town will be accepted.
• Those who are ineligible to enter the Awards (on behalf of a town or as a nominee for the Digital Hero Award) include staff of .ie, their relatives and related entities, suppliers and service providers. Third party providers of infrastructure / commercial digital services to towns are not eligible to enter the Awards.
• All entries must be made by non-commercial groups/committees on behalf of their town/community for digital projects undertaken or delivered on the island of Ireland. Individual businesses are also eligible.
• Where applicants nominate a Digital Hero, they must obtain the nominee’s prior consent to their nomination, and provide the provisional nominee with a copy of these Terms and Conditions and our Privacy Policy. Nominators should not include any special category personal data concerning nominees in any application. Such data includes any information revealing: health / medical data, race or ethnic origin, political opinions, religious or philosophical beliefs, trade union membership or data concerning a nominee’s sex life or sexual orientation. Any applications including such information will be disqualified and deleted.
• A shortlist of finalists will be published on our website weare.ie in the week commencing 8 April 2024. Those shortlisted will also be notified by email, to the email address specified on the application form.
• Shortlisted entrants may be asked to provide further information or clarifications to assist judges in reaching their final decision.
• In the event of a low number of high-quality entries, no shortlist will be generated for the relevant prize.
• The judging panel will consider the merits of each entry in accordance with the judging criteria, having regard to the relevant Award category/categories, and they will be responsible for the allocation of prizes for each category. The details of the judging panel, judging criteria and prizes are available on our website.
• The decision of the judging panel is final in respect of winners, runners-up and shortlisted applications and no correspondence will be entered into.
• Winners and runners-up will be announced at a gala event in May 2024 – details and date to be confirmed.
• Entrants (or their representatives) and nominees for the Digital Hero prize must agree to participate in unpaid media and promotional activities if they are winners or runners-up in town categories, overall winners or special award winners.
• The details of winners and runners-up will be published on our website weare.ie after they have been contacted and authenticated.
• If a winner/runner-up or their representative cannot be contacted or does not claim their prize within 14 days of notification, .ie reserves the right to withdraw the prize from the winner/runner-up and to ask the judging panel or an independent adjudicator to select an alternative winner/runner-up.
• In order to claim a prize, the winner/runner-up or their representative will be required to sign documentation as may be requested by .ie relating to acceptance of the Awards prize, these Terms and Conditions, and including but not limited to, waiver of liability release in favour of .ie and such other persons as may be determined by .ie.
• Payment of prizes will be credited to the Award winners/runners-up (or their representatives, as appropriate) by bank transfer, cheque, bank draft or other manner reasonably determined by .ie. Applicants/representatives of the winner/runner-up may be required to provide evidence of identity and/or evidence of their entitlement to represent the winner/runner-up prior to claiming a prize. In the event that appropriate evidence as requested by .ie is not provided, the winner/runner-up will forfeit the prize in full and no substitute will be offered.
• .ie reserves the right to cancel or terminate any Award category and to not award any prize for the cancelled/terminated category at any time without prior notice for any reason whatsoever, including low quality or low number of applications in any given category.
• The prizes are as offered and no non-cash alternative will be available.
• .ie and its agents are excluded from liability for any loss, expense or liability which might arise from entering the Awards or accepting a prize.
• All taxes, insurance, fees and surcharges on any prize are the sole responsibility of the winner/runner-up and/or their representative(s).
• All applications submitted to .ie will become the sole and exclusive property of .ie. .ie may use, reproduce, edit, display, transmit, prepare derivative works of, modify, publish and otherwise make use of applications in any and all media, whether now known or hereinafter created, throughout the world and for any purpose, without compensation to the applicant/ representee of any kind.
• Any personal data relating to applicants to the Awards will be processed in accordance with data protection law. Please see .ie’s Privacy Policy for more information about how personal data is processed.  Data will be retained by .ie in relation to applicants for a reasonable amount of time after the Awards close to administer the Awards and address any queries. Where individual applicants/representatives of towns provide personal data in completing the application form, raising queries about the Awards etc., .ie processes such personal data on the basis of its legitimate interests in conducting the Awards. To the extent that .ie may process the personal data of entrants and their representatives for the purposes of publicity, it does so on the basis of its legitimate interests in promoting the business of .ie.
• .ie is entitled to treat any entry that relates to a town group as an entry that is made by the town group.
• .ie reserves the right to amend these Terms and Conditions.
• In the event of any dispute regarding these Terms and Conditions, the operation or the results of the Awards, the decision of .ie will be final and binding in all matters.
• If any provision of these Terms and Conditions is held to be invalid, void or unenforceable by reason of any law, rule, administrative order or judicial decision, that provision will be, to the extent strictly necessary, severed from the remaining terms and conditions and that determination shall not affect the validity of the remaining provisions. In the case of the severance of any terms, the part deemed invalid or unenforceable shall be amended in a manner consistent with the applicable law to reflect, as closely as possible, the original intent in these Terms and Conditions.
• Failure by .ie to insist upon strict performance of any of the applicant’s obligations or to exercise any of the rights or remedies to which .ie is entitled shall not constitute a waiver of such rights or remedies and shall not relieve the applicant from compliance with such obligations and a waiver by .ie of any default shall not constitute a waiver of any subsequent default.
• .ie will not be responsible for any delay or failure in performance resulting from acts beyond .ie’s control. Such acts will include but not be limited to: acts of God, government or war; riots; terrorist acts; epidemics, pandemics, fires, floods, or disasters, industrial disputes, failure of a utility service, the unavailability of any communications network or any cyber-attack leading to the unavailability or service issues on the .ie website.
• These Terms and Conditions, together with any other documents referred to herein represent the entire agreement between .ie and the applicant and supersede any prior agreement, understanding or arrangement, whether oral or in writing.
• These Terms and Conditions shall be governed by Irish law and any claims or proceedings arising out of or in any way relating to the Awards or these Terms and Conditions, shall be governed by the laws of Ireland and the Irish Courts shall have exclusive jurisdiction over them.