Ms D?sir?e Finnegan:

The Deputy means in general. As I said in my opening statement, Screen Ireland has a dual remit. They are both equally important in finding a fine balance between both areas of responsibility.

Screen Ireland is responsible for the expression of national Irish culture on screen. We work with a production and development team to invest in projects. We support projects literally through every stage of the process. There is our version of research and development where one develops an idea for a film, a television drama, an animation or whatever. We probably have between 80 and 100 projects in active development within the agency. That supports Irish talent to come in and develop work in this area, which we do in a variety of different ways. Production companies and producers come in with their ideas. Throughout the pandemic we worked really hard as a team to ensure that we supported opportunities for other creative talent as well. We have run a number of different programmes. For example, one programme is called The Voice and it supports Irish directors. The Screen Directors Guild of Ireland came to us with the idea for this fantastic programme as it allows directors funding so they can go off and develop their own ideas. We are seeing some of those ideas come through now. Initially, this was a Covid-19 support measure but we are seeing it now coming through the production lane We have a number of different programmes, including one called Spotlight for writers.