Oireachtas Joint and Select Committees

Wednesday, 9 December 2020

Joint Committee on Media, Tourism, Arts, Culture, Sport and the Gaeltacht

Impact of Covid-19 on the Film and Television Industry: Discussion

Ms Désirée Finnegan:

No. The €1 million in funding was reallocated from funds we had. We actually reallocated about €4 million from production funding into development. The additional funding we received was €3 million in television drama stimulus funding, which was part of the July jobs stimulus package. That went very directly into television drama. It went towards a number of initiatives with the broadcasters and towards establishing the first television drama academy for Ireland. We recently received some additional funding - €1 million of this was for the animation activity and a further €1.3 million was for the cinemas. We just launched, on Monday, a cinema stimulus fund to help support the cinemas in their reopening. They are operating with such restrictions that it is necessary to support them and the work they do in the community across Ireland. The exhibition landscape in Ireland is unique. We have a screen density across the country. We have cinemas in very small towns, relatively speaking. In 2019, we had the highest rate of cinema admissions per capita in Europe. Therefore, we really felt the additional funding was very specifically for those key areas.

Comments

No comments

Log in or join to post a public comment.