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

Okay. One of the things the PBO, in looking at all this, is saying, and I am in agreement, is we are not having a proper evaluation on a regular enough basis of these things and hearing from stakeholders as to the arguments and pros and cons of this. I do not think we are. Ms Donaghy can put that case and I am sure people will put that case but then I think of the fact that educational counselling and psychology are not funded for people to do doctorates, yet we have a chronic shortage of psychologists to do assessments for children. I want to hear that discussion on evaluating if this is the best expenditure of public money in the area of encouraging research, advancing research, and so on. We are not getting that level of scrutiny, oversight and hearing from the different stakeholders so we can make a proper evaluation. We should find ways to have that discussion with all those stakeholders in a more structured way.

We have discussed the film tax credit many times. According to the EU, state aid to film must meet two tests, namely, the industry development test and the culture test. The industry development test is worth reading out. It states there will be:

... [an] aim to generate the critical mass of activity that is required to create the dynamic for the development and consolidation of the industry through the creation of soundly based production undertakings and the development of a permanent pool of human skills and experience.

Then there is "... the primary cultural aim of ensuring that the national and regional cultures and creative potential are expressed in the audiovisual media of film and television". How are we evaluating that? I believe we are not doing so at all, to be honest. Margrethe Vestager, as the Commissioner with responsibility for state aid, wrote to the Minister for Foreign Affairs, Deputy Coveney, in 2019 to express concerns about whether we were meeting the cultural test. There are very serious question marks. It is interesting that on foot of that that this year an Irish film won a load of awards at the Irish Film and Television Awards. I do not think that was a coincidence.

I am sure it was deserved, but it was very interesting because it was the first time it had happened for yonks . In my view, that was because it was being called out on it.

How are we evaluating this? I would be interested to know if anyone has ever been refused section 481 support on the grounds of not meeting the culture test. Has anybody ever been refused on the grounds of not meeting the industry development test? One of the biggest recipients of section 481 support is producing “Vikings: Valhalla”, which is being shot in Wicklow at the moment. It was reported in the newspapers recently that: "A note attached to the accounts states that the majority of workers employed are contract workers." This raises serious questions about the industry development test. If the majority of people working on a production for one of the biggest - if not the biggest - recipients of section 481 tax relief year in, year out, are contractors rather than individuals who have an employment relationship with the recipient, that is a big problem. In the context of any reasonable understanding of the EU rules around this test, that clearly does not meet the industry development test. It is not creating a permanent pool of skills, and it involves using a load of contractors who have no employment relationship whatsoever with the recipient of the relief. That relief is given specifically on the grounds of creating quality employment and training, and creating a permanent pool of skills. How are we checking this? It appears to me that we are not. We are listening to the producers who get the relief and they are saying that it is brilliant. Of course they are saying it is brilliant because they are getting the relief and benefiting from it.

Previously, this criticism was coming from people who were employed on construction crews, stage crews, etc. I do not know if our witnesses have had a chance to read the Equity submission. Equity raises some very interesting questions and expresses concerns about section 481. Equity, the film workers who have expressed deep concerns and I all want to see money going in to create an industry. However, Equity has asked some serious questions. It states that the risks regarding the way in which it is done at the moment relate to: excluding new and emerging independent producers and having a large amount of industry power concentrated within a small group of players; the potential abuse of the tax credit through a range of practices, including internal pricing and artificially depressed income strategies; and the flaunting of national and international copyright legislation. This latter concern relates to the question of residuals and royalties. Nearly all of the major recipients of section 481 relief in this country tell people who want to work in film productions that in order to get jobs, they have to sign up to buy-out contracts where they sign away all of their royalties and residuals. Their counterparts in Britain are not asked to do that. This is absolutely outrageous. Residuals are one of the major ways whereby artists and performers who are in very precarious situations might get a little bit of money back over the years from a film that continues to be shown again and again. The recipients of section 481 in this country are insisting that most performers and artists must sign away their rights to the particular production in question.

This also raises a very interesting question as to whom those rights are being assigned? Who then gets the royalties over the years? Is it the DAC that disappears after 12 months following the end of the production? This is the mushroom-like nature of the DAC. Where employees have grievances and go to the WRC and raise issues relating to their employment on a production or in respect of instances where they may have been wrongfully dismissed or badly treated, the film production company, which receives the money on the basis of developing the industry, quality employment and training, goes before the WRC and the Labour Court again and again and states that not only is the relevant person not its employee but also that the structure of section 481 means he or she could never be an employee of the company. The employer is the DAC and the DAC is gone. As a result, nobody is accountable for how a person is treated on a particular film production. I do not even know the answer to the question as to what happens to the royalties and residuals because they are not going to the performers. Where are they going? I presume they are going to the production company, which has always existed and which is the recipient of section 481 relief. This is the company that has managed to disown responsibility for everybody who has worked on the film production and got all of them to sign away their rights to further royalties. When are we going to start looking seriously at these things?