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

I will make another point on why I think this matter is in the interest of the Minister, and not just from the point of view of the employees. This issue is important for workers. They have the right to accumulate rights as workers. They have the right, after spending a decade or two in an industry, not to be completely insecure as to their prospects of future employment. They are vulnerable in that situation and should not be so.

I wish to make an equally serious point and ask the Minister to give it serious consideration. The EU has clearly set out state aid rules for arts funding. The Union fully accepts, as I do and I fully support, that one needs to give state aid to the arts because, due to their nature, they cannot always be expected to make a profit. The EU goes on to say that the state aid should be conditional on creating a permanent pool of talent and creating companies of scale. That is a condition under which the EU allows money to flow to the arts, and specifically film. That is not happening in Ireland. We do not have a permanent pool of talent because none of those workers from project to project has any right to be in the industry. They can work for a few years and then a producer will tell them that he or she is not taking them on for the next project. A producer will say, "I have employed you on the last five projects via these DACs but I am not taking you for this one because I have just decided I am not taking you." These workers have absolutely no rights in that situation and, therefore, no permanent pool of talent is created. People in the industry say that, as a result, trainees never even get to the point where they are accredited as trainees and the majority of people who are categorised as trainees never stay in the industry because there is no pathway to reach a point where they are an accredited member of the film industry. We, therefore, do not get a permanent pool of employees, which we should. None of the companies that I mentioned have a company of scale. I mentioned the 12 apostles or the seven or eight big ones. The largest one has a staff of ten or 15 people, which is not a company of scale.

I refer to encouraging foreign investment.

I am sure that is something Fine Gael wishes to see. It is unattractive if there is no experienced pool of people in the industry or companies of scale and, instead, everything is cobbled together for each production. That is not an industry. However, we are putting in probably €100 million per year if one takes account of the Irish Film Board and have nothing to show for it. We need to address that and further refine the relief to ensure that we have a permanent pool of employees, it is made clear who are the employers and we get an industry of scale.