Ms Mary Nash:

On behalf of the Department of Tourism, Culture, Arts, Gaeltacht, Sport & Media, I thank the committee for today’s invitation. I am a principal officer in the arts, film and investment unit of the Department. The Department welcomes the opportunity to discuss supports for the development of regional film and TV production.

Government support for the audiovisual industry in Ireland is a two-pronged approach, involving direct grants to the Irish screen industry and screen industry professionals and section 481 tax relief. Screen Ireland is under the aegis of the Department and is the State body with responsibility for developing the audiovisual industry in Ireland. It makes funding available to audiovisual projects. Over the past five years, Screen Ireland’s funding has almost doubled from €20 million in 2019 to more than €39 million this year. Members will hear from Screen Ireland separately. While the Minister for Finance is responsible under legislation for section 481 tax relief, applications for the relief are made to my unit in the Department. On receipt of a successful application, a section 481 certificate is issued that allows a film project to claim a tax relief of 32% of eligible expenditure from the Revenue Commissioners, subject to a cap. As the majority of filming activity is concentrated in the Dublin and Wicklow region, a regional uplift of a tapering rate of 37% to 34% was made available in the regions for a five-year period up to and including 2023. This was in order to build a skilled workforce outside Dublin and Wicklow. Members will be familiar with many films that were made in the regions over the past five years. The regional uplift allowed a blossoming of film and TV drama in the regions. Much of this was attributed to the section 481 regional uplift. Officials from the Department of Finance will speak later.

In the 2022-23 period, the Department issued a total of 436 certificates that allowed indigenous and incoming productions to claim section 481 relief. Of those 436 certificates, 17.4% or 76 in number were for regional uplift projects. Of those, 15 were feature films, 23 were television dramas, and 38 were animations and creative documentaries. As a result, many counties outside of the traditional hubs of Dublin and Wicklow benefited from the additional regional uplift and the associated economic activity. Ireland’s recent success at the Oscars has shown how all the measures taken by the Government in recent years have made a real impact in establishing the credibility of Ireland’s screen industry abroad. The Department has provided some additional briefing to the committee. While this opening statement touches only briefly on the industry, I am happy to take questions from the committee.