Heather Humphreys (Cavan-Monaghan, Fine Gael) | Oireachtas source

The Film Board does tremendous work and has supported a number of successful films such as "Brooklyn" and "Room". In 2016 it has supported up to six creative feature film co-productions, ten documentary feature films for cinema release and the production of four animated TV series. It supports the development of TV drama productions in English and Irish and for cinema distribution. Therefore, it does extremely good work. I was glad that I was able to move it in the right direction and secure an increase in its budget last year. If we can build on the support we give it, we can get even better results. It is very positive and proactive in that there is so much it can and wants to do. This will be in the context of the budgetary discussions to be held later in the year, but the Film Board states we improved the level of section 481 tax relief. The Revenue Commissioners estimates that the projects which availed of section 481 tax relief in 2015 supported 12,000 jobs and had combined expenditure of almost €160 million. The raising of the cap on film tax relief was, therefore, most welcome and helped to attract some very high-profile film productions. In this context, I need only mention "Star Wars"; everybody knows the benefits it brought to west Cork, County Kerry, Malin Head and all along the west coast. Up to 500 people were working on the set at any given time. I visited it in County Kerry and it is amazing what such activity can do for a local town. It was through the work of the Film Board and the tax incentives in place that the production was able to be attracted to Ireland. It was hugely significant.

I went to see the first of the second or third series of "Star Wars". A little flicker of the Skelligs can be seen at the end of it and, goodness me, it is amazing. I hope that in the next film, we will see a lot more of Ireland.