Ms Mary Callery:

It is very interesting and is a case in point that the Deputy raised the issue of increasing the RTÉ amount being spent on the independent sector. At a previous point in my career, ten or 15 years ago, I was a commissioning editor for drama in RTÉ. In that time, we commissioned projects like “The Clinic”, “Love is the Drug”, “Bachelors Walk”, “Paths to Freedom” and shortly thereafter, series like “Love/Hate”, all of which have become household names. The reality of the funding model of those projects at that time was that the domestic market was able to provide up 40% or 50% of the funding required. Therefore, one was able to rely on that small amount of tax incentive and some overseas sales to make the projects. Over those ten to 15 years, as the sector has developed its skill set and more creative voices have come in through working on domestically produced and incoming projects, we have seen the independent sector grow in terms of its skill space and the quality of work it produces. We are very proud of that but at the same time, there has been a decrease in the amount of moneys available from the domestic market.

We are at a point where there is a significant demand for content. Irish content travels very well. International distributors and international broadcasters want to see Irish content because we have a reputation as a nation of storytellers and producers of high-quality content. However, because of the failure of the domestic market part of our funding patchwork, the patchwork to which Ms Kirby has referred, we are inevitably left with a gap of about 20%, having raised the maximum amount of funding available on the international market. That 20% deficit is made up of shrinking investment from the broadcasters and the lack of other supports available. Although we are appreciative and cognisant of the essential component of funding from Screen Ireland and the BAI provide us, as well as the access to section 481. On that point I would say that there is a tax incentive available in every territory, in every part of the world. It is a component of every financing plan, whether that is an Irish, English, American or a French production, so that has to be discounted. We just do not have enough money in the market.

This levy, along with the restoration of the level of independent production investment from broadcasters in Ireland, will result in more Irish content for Irish audiences. That is the bottom line. We make projects that travel globally. We are very lucky as an island nation we have always been outward looking. Irish storytelling has always been a local story for a global audience. That is very true now. Unless we can secure the potion of the financing we need from our domestic market, as Mr. McCabe refereed to earlier, we end up selling off bits of the idea in order to raise the money to make it. It is like selling off the family silver. The Irish creators who come up with the idea, who have the imagination and creativity to pull it all together, basically end up owning very little of it because they have to sell it off to get the money in to make it. That is the dysfunction of the market here. That is why restoring RTÉ and the broadcaster investment in independent production, and introducing this levy, will go a significant way in filling that deficit. The net result will be more Irish production for Irish audiences, which is what we as the independent sector in Ireland want. That is our mission: to have more Irish content for Irish audiences.