Oireachtas Joint and Select Committees

Tuesday, 24 September 2019

Committee on Budgetary Oversight

Scrutiny of Tax Expenditures: Screen Producers Ireland

Ms Elaine Geraghty:

On the regional uplift, it was only written into legislation in July of this year. It has taken a while but is extremely welcome. Most production takes place around Dublin and Wicklow so opening it out beyond those areas is incredibly important. There are two reasons, really. It is costly to bring crew with skills out of Dublin. It is incredibly important for places like Troy Studios in Limerick, for example. In parallel with that, it also allows skills to develop within those regions so that in future when productions happen, we have local crew. The uplift is 5% and there are lots of obligations with it. The focus is on looking into the local talent pool and building a permanent talent pool outside the usual areas where production takes place. It is really important, especially for incoming and studio-based productions. It is only for four years and it is tapered so we need to see how successful it will be. It is only the very beginning. Maybe in a year's time the Deputy can ask me again. I will let him know how it goes. I do not know if Ms Ward wants to contribute on that.

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