Richard Boyd Barrett (Dún Laoghaire, People Before Profit Alliance) | Oireachtas source

There are a couple of issues that have been alluded to. It is probably important to spell them out here. How many people are actually employed in the industry? Is ask this in light of the tax arrangements relating to the industry and the more than €70 million in grants from which it benefits? Either Screen Producers Ireland or the Irish Film Board, I cannot remember which, referred to 17,000 full-time equivalent employees. The witnesses are suggesting that the number employed in the industry is actually a fraction of that and that those people essentially have no recognition of their employment. They have no continuity of employment. In many cases, there is no recognition of their qualifications as a result of the abuse of the trainee category. I was very struck when I met some of the workers to whom Mr. Ward and Mr. Neville introduced me. There were people who had worked in the industry for a long time - 30 or 40 years - but despite that long service, they had no pension entitlements whatsoever. Indeed, on foot of their lack of proper employment status, they were working well into their 70s when they would rather be retired.

Would the witnesses like to comment on that issue? How many people are actually employed in the industry, and what does their career look like, where those issues are concerned?