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

I thank Ms Murray and Mr. Arkins. In fairness, they have not gone into the individual adjudications, if you like. What they are saying is incredibly relevant because it underlines the point that the sole purpose of this tax relief is to create quality employment and training and to contribute to Irish culture. If it does not do those things, then it should not be paid out. More to the point, the recipients of that must sign a solemn declaration saying they are doing that. Ms Murray and Mr. Arkins have spelled this out, but if they feel there is anything more they can say to do so, then they should, because as I look on, there is an incredible, gross contradiction. On the one hand, film producers last year could get €100 million for this by signing a solemn undertaking they are creating quality employment and training, and then the very same people can walk into the WRC and say they can have no employment relationship with the people who worked on the film production. It is not just that they do not have an employment relationship with Mr. Arkins or a particular individual but that they say they cannot have an employment relationship with them. They are blaming section 481, which is dubious, to put it mildly, but it is an incredible contradiction. I do not know if Ms Murray and Mr. Arkins want to spell that out. In that regard, I ask them to elaborate the point about the EU directives on state aid and industry development, because from my reading of this, the only reason the EU allows particular forms of state aid is to create a permanent pool of talent. How do you create a permanent pool if the people who get the state aid say they cannot under any circumstances have any employees? It is hard for me to understand how that can be sustained and whether it has to be investigated. Ms Murray and Mr. Arkins may have some comments on that.

Another question I am interested in relates to something our guests often say. Maybe it is worth underlining the figures for how much has gone into section 481 over the past decade. Our guests always put it fairly starkly by asking what we have got for all that public money. Can anybody think of any other area of expenditure where the State would have forked out €4 billion and have nothing, literally nothing, for it, namely, no employees, no ownership of content, no studios, no equipment and no props? We have literally nothing. Maybe they could say a little about where that money is going or where they think it is going because, at the end of it, the State does not seem to have anything for the investment. Where is the physical equipment bought with section 481 money on film productions going?