Mr. John Arkins:

I can give the Deputy a summary of our 2011 submission, from the time when I was shop steward and president of the branch. This is the mechanism from which those figures come. This was a 2011 report called the Creative Capiral report. Every five years, a report is prepared by vested interest groups, usually at the time of a change of Government. Now we have the Crowe Horwath report. This is how they come to these figures. This is what lay people need to hear, before deciding what they think .

The report claimed that crew are employed on a 38-hour week, and work 232 days per year. It found that the 38-hour week average is derived from a 39-hour week average for manual workers and a 37-hour week for clerical professionals and technical workers. The 232-day working year is derived as follows. From 365 days, 104 are subtracted for weekends; a further nine for public holidays; 20 days are then subtracted for average annual leave. This leaves 232 days.

We and our colleagues work for up to 70 or 80 hours a week. That has been reported as a 38-hour week. All of the hours worked have been counted. That is how they arrive at an figure of 17,000 people in full-time jobs, working 1,365 hours a year. They calculate the hours, not the people. One can do that all one likes, but that is the reality. Those were the findings of the Creative Capiral report from 2010. That is their contention, not ours.

The report did avert to industrial relations issues, and following its publication the then Minister for Arts, Heritage and the Gaeltacht, Deputy Jimmy Deenihan, appointed a man named Mr. Peter Cassells to investigate industrial relations in Irish film. He would not take the job, and it was given to a lovely man by the name of Mr. Finbarr Flood, whom I was privileged to meet. He started his working life as a 14-year-old boy at the Guinness brewery. Over his working career, he ended up becoming the managing director of the company. He was also the chair of the Labour Court. Mr. Flood said he could understand that after 27 years working in the industry, I am still humping timber. The man on my right is still humping timber. There is no career path, because no one takes responsibility. No one has to.

That is how they came up with the figures, and that is how they come up with the figures today. As a group of workers, we have been excluded. We are habitually employed by my employer and associate employers. I refer to the McHenry brothers. This is law adjudicated on by the court. We cannot be treated any less favourably than full-time workers, but we have been excluded from our workplace by agreements. The employers do not hire get union members; they get conscripts. They are conscripted for one job and one job only. That is the problem.