Ruairi Ó Murchú (Louth, Sinn Fein) | Oireachtas source

I will speak on amendments Nos. 53 and 54. Deputy Boyd Barrett has dealt with a considerable number of the issues and I will not hold the Minister and everybody else too long. All the witnesses we heard from in regard to the section 481 relief said it is an absolute necessity for ensuring we have a sustainable film industry. The problem is the intellectual property issues as they relate to those involved in performing in film and television. In particular, there is a huge number of issues relating to the pay and conditions of workers. There have also been allegations made that blackballing is taking place, whereby when people bring up particular work conditions, including some who raised them in front of Oireachtas committees, they suddenly find they do not get the call for the next film. As Deputy Boyd Barrett stated, this information is coming from a number of people, not just a small contingent.

I acknowledge the idea behind the DAC is that it covers a single project and is self-contained. However, the fact is 90% of funding can be drawn down almost straight away, all the expenses and everything else are left with the DAC and nobody is entirely sure how the ownership of the product is dealt with. The whole idea is that we provide for a sustainable film industry. Another issue we are hearing about, however, is that ratios have become rather bad on film sets. Whereas previously there would have been a larger number of experienced staff, they have now been replaced with people in training. While there is an acceptance that some amount of that is needed, it is alleged in some cases that people's working conditions are not great and, beyond this, that some of the output is not necessarily as good as it could be. Regarding the particular production Deputy Boyd Barrett spoke about, there are allegations that some of the reshooting was necessary on the basis that what was done initially was not up to scratch.

All I can say is that these are the issues that have been brought to our attention. Deputy Doherty's amendment No. 54 proposes that the whole process be reviewed. Everybody who spoke to us said the most important thing is that we maintain a sustainable film industry but also that taxpayers get bang for their buck. We are talking about a huge investment being made by the State. We must make sure we can keep the show on the road. One of the issues in regard to crew is that there is no representation for them at any level within any of the bodies that are allegedly meant to take on board their concerns. That is a real issue.

We must look at this from the point of view of whether we are delivering the product from the taxpayers' perspective and whether we are ensuring we will have a sustainable industry into the future. We have to deal with the individual issues that were raised earlier. It was said to all of us that materials are purchased by the DAC for set production and all the rest of it and, in a lot of cases, they are bought back later. We are probably talking about a case of the taxpayer paying more than once for the same materials.

We need to review the process for the reasons I have spoken about previously. In fairness, Deputy Boyd Barrett has gone through all the issues far more eloquently and in greater detail. We need to take the opportunity to act now, with a view to ensuring due diligence is done, we have a better product for taxpayers and for everyone and that we can maintain the industry into the future.