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

It does. It is a very stark picture and rather a depressing one, with all of this public money going in. I will fire a few more questions at Mr. O'Brien before my time runs out and I hope he can come back on them, and I know Ms Quinn also wants to come in. I understood from hearing what was said earlier that one contrast is that if someone is working on a film in Ireland just for a few days, they might then be laid off and they would have to go back on social welfare, and they might then come in for another few days and go back on social welfare again, whereas in the UK, people actually get paid throughout the period. That seems like a big contrast and perhaps Mr. O'Brien can spell out that.

Second, what happens to an actor who says, “I do not want to sign the buy-out contract”? When they do sign it, who ends up with the value of their intellectual property? Who walks off with it? The DAC ceases to exist after a year, so who actually goes off with all the money? As well as the actors getting back some of the money they should be getting, should the State be getting back some of that money because of its investment through section 481? Who actually gets it?

Irish Equity mentioned in its longer submission that there was potential abuse of tax credits through a range of practices, including internal pricing and artificially depressed income strategies, which sounds pretty ominous. The witnesses might spell out what that means.