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

I will try to resubmit my amendment but I want to put the issue on the record for the committee so that it can be raised on Report Stage. I call on the Minister to look again at the section 481 film tax relief. We have discussed the relief at length and I acknowledge that he has been very positive in his engagement and response to some of the points that I raised. Indeed, new guidelines were published on 31 October, which is positive and welcome. I commend the Minister and his team on doing so but there is more to be done.

The basic objective of section 481 is to contribute to filmmaking in the country, and the culture of the country and, critically, to provide quality employment and training. That key phrase is a condition of the relief. It is still not the case that we are getting "quality employment and training". The reason is the structure of the relief is that producer companies apply for it. These are standing major production companies, which are famously known as the 12 apostles, with probably seven or eight of them being significant players. They get significant tax relief pretty much every year, which is worth about €80 million a year. Over the past decade, these companies have received many millions of euro to make films. They claim the relief on the basis that they will provide "quality employment and training" but then a designated activity company, DAC, is set up for the particular film production. However, when the people who work on the film seek to vindicate their rights, for example, under the Protection of Employees (Fixed-Term Workers) Act 2003, which ensures that people who work on a fixed-term basis from project to project accumulate rights from one project to another. Workers are unable to do that because when they seek to assert their rights, the film producer who applies for the relief from the Department of Finance says that he or she is not the employer and the DAC is the employer. The film producer company applies for the relief and it should only get the relief if it provides employment and training but they do not, and it says it is the DAC that is the employer. For example, if a worker, as has happened on a number of occasions, goes to the Workplace Relations Commission, WRC, and says, "You are my employer" but the film producer who has applied to the Minister for the tax relief says, "I am not and the DAC is the employer". Of course, by the time the work gets to the WRC, the DAC does not exist because the film production, typically, is a few months or weeks so there is no employer. I do not see how we can give out €80 million in tax relief when there are no employers or give it to people who say they are going to create employment but when asked by their employees, "Are you my employer?", they reply that they are not nor do they take responsibility for training. There is, therefore, something wrong with the structure. As a result, the people who have worked for decades in the industry accumulate no rights as employees, which I am sure that the Minister will accept is wrong. Clearly, that flies in the face of the fixed-term workers' directive and the Protection of Employees (Fixed-Term Workers) Act, which specifically states that fixed-term employees should not enjoy conditions any less favourable than somebody on a permanent contract. That is what the legislation is supposed to achieve but these workers do not get those rights because it is a DAC, which appears like a mushroom but then disappears. The same producer company will set up a series of DACs.

I ask the Minister to clarify in the section 481 relief that the employer is the producer company that applies for the relief. These companies get the relief on the basis of providing employment and, therefore, they must be the employer. That aspect should be clearly established. Such companies cannot say to the Minister, "Give me the money because I am going to create employment" yet say to the employee, "I am not your employer". That is having your cake and eating it or speaking out of both sides of your mouth.