Ms Aoife O'Sullivan:

On the question of international productions, that is interesting and I will tell the committee about my experience during lockdown. I am a film and TV drama producer for the past 20 years with a company called Subotica. We were two weeks into an international production in March when lockdown happened and we had to stand down for five months. We restarted in August. Fortunately, we were able to get back to work because TV production was considered an essential service, which was great. There were many challenges and 50 pages of protocols but we managed it.

There was a question on international travel and bringing people in from abroad. That was difficult but manageable because we stuck to the quarantine guidelines, and people were brought in, quarantined and tested weekly. It went smoothly and it was a 16-week shoot in total, two before lockdown and 14 afterwards. We wrapped two weeks ago and are in post-production now. International production will not be hampered because even during level 5 restrictions we can continue, so we are fortunate in that regard.