Mr. Eoin Holohan:

I would echo that. There is a suggestion that there are no real jobs. I have heard the likes of that bandied about. I ask the committee to visit us. We will show the committee around and the members can meet the people who are working on the ground and can talk to them.

I did not get a chance to answer some of Deputy Boyd Barrett's questions properly, such as how one gets a job and where the guilds come from. Briefly, in 2018, a large number of crew felt we did not have a voice. There was a voice being heard but we felt that we did not have a voice. I felt I did not. We are film crew, we are good at getting organised and we got organised. We organised ourselves into guilds really quickly. The locations guild was the first guild. It is probably ten years old. Other crew took our lead and formed guilds. Then we decided we should have a representative body - Screen Guilds Ireland - and that is where we come from.

We are ambitious. We have looked for funding and got it from Screen Ireland, but we are also looking further afield. That will get bigger.

I think there is some confusion. We are all for quality employment. We want it and it is a part of section 481 that we get it but there seems to be confusion between quality employment and permanent employment. Most of us, myself included, want to work in a freelance industry. That is why I got into it. It is a creative industry and it is freelance. I want to go from job to job. I do not want to be tied to one production company and to only do the work that it does. I want to be able to move around. To have a career in this industry, how do you get a job? You go in as a trainee and get to know people. You make contacts and find out who is on the next job. People tell you who is on the job, and to ring this guy and so on. That is what happens. It sounds like a cliché but film crew are like a family. We help each other out. We tell each other what jobs are coming in and what jobs need people. I hope that answers some of the question. The committee should come out and meet us on set and can ask us anything it wants.