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

I genuinely welcome the Minister's response, particularly his commitment to meet all the people to whom he referred. It is critically important that he meets not only the people who think everything is okay but also those who are raising very serious concerns and questions in order that we get a balance.

Indeed, there are other people. We obviously mentioned the Irish Film Workers Association and Equity as groups that had the confidence to come in, if you like. One of those groups would say its members have suffered very dire consequences. That needs to be looked at. The other group represents without question the actors and performers who maybe have the confidence to come in and raise questions. If the Minister is open to it, however, there are other individuals working in the industry who do not have the confidence to go public but would probably welcome private engagements with the Department to be able to give evidence of what they know and see in the industry. I ask that of the Minister. These are people who would have absolutely clear credentials, if you like, as players in the film industry. We need to hear from everybody.

As part of that, I hope this might conclude with the once promised but subsequently abandoned film industry stakeholders forum, which the Government wanted to happen and that was recommended by the then Joint Committee on Culture, Heritage and the Gaeltacht in 2018. Certain elements within the film industry simply vetoed it, however. They said they were not involving themselves and the thing fell apart.

It never happened. No group should have the right to veto a stakeholder forum in an industry that would not exist without public money. It is important that we keep reminding ourselves that it would not exist without public money. That is different from the non-funded arts sector. That is a distinction I only fully got into my head during Covid-19. We discovered there are a great many people in entertainment, music and so forth who are not funded. There should be good employer-employee relations in that situation but there is something different between a sector that is not publicly funded and how it would deal with employee-employer relations and something that is publicly funded, depends on public funding and would not exist without it. I ask members to think about that difference in how we approach this. I believe that makes the sector different. It is also different precisely because the film relief is about quality employment and training and because of the EU directive. That slightly changes the pitch. That is my point. If it was not funded, we might well say to someone who experiences a problem that they can go to the WRC or the Health and Safety Authority because that is what those bodies are for. However, this is slightly different because the funding is all public money, from section 481, Screen Ireland, the Broadcasting Authority of Ireland, RTÉ and so on. Those are other revenue streams that are not even counted in some of the figures I have referred to. There is all this public money going into the sector and even the producers acknowledge that without this money, there would be no industry. It is entirely dependent on public money. Therefore, the Minister, whose response and engagement I genuinely welcome, and the Government need to think about the fact that this is the public's money.

I hope the Minister will discuss this issue with those who are expressing concern, the contrarians. As the Nyberg report produced after the economic crash stated, we need to listen to the contrarians. One of the lessons of the crash in 2008 was that we did not listen enough to the contrarians. It is important that we listen to them so that we have a balanced view. I ask the Minister to note that this project-to-project system does not exist in the animation industry, which is also funded by section 481. It does not exist. There are different animated films that are done project to project, but they are standing companies with employees and a production line. I have no doubt the producers will come in here and say that is different but it is not necessarily different and it was not always different. Once upon a time in the film industry, people were employed by studios. People will say that was the "olden days" and it is different now but they will not say why it is different or better. The people who say it is different now and we cannot go back to the way it was say that because they are doing quite well. I fully understand they would want to say that.

An issue raised with me, which I ask the Minister to look into, is producer fees and how big they are. I have heard of shocking figures of €250,000 each for producers on films that have a total budget of about €8 million. The same productions then skimp on overtime payments and allowances, whereas the producers are getting €250,000 each. These issues need to be looked at because this is public money. It is obvious that those people have little interest in questioning the current model. That is self-evident but it does not mean they are right.

As one person put it to me, a live action film is a production line. It is different in the sense that there is a creative aspect, if we can put it in those terms. That is important. On another level, a film is a production line with trades, builders, transport workers and so on. There is no need for those people to exist in complete precarity and insecurity. One might well argue that on creative grounds the same writer cannot write every time for the producer company, which, by the way, does exist all the time. That is the one area that is not project-to-project. A producer company to which public money is given does not have an episodic existence. It exists all along the line. We can name the companies.

I again welcome what the Minister said. It was suggested to me that one thing we could do is to phone up the ten or 15 major recipients. That number could be narrowed down to six or seven. We should phone them up and ask how many employees they have. Those companies have existed for ten or 15 years so they are not episodic. They also decide the disposal of the intellectual property rights of the performers and so on. That is who they are transferred to and they are then transferred on elsewhere - we do not quite know to whom. Are they transferred on to the big American companies? Are they put into another DAC? I believe that was alleged in a German case where the revenues accruing to a particular film, a co-production with a German company, had been put somewhere else and there was a legal case around it. Where do they go? Who gets those revenues? It is not the State or the artists. I ask the Minister to seriously examine that and question this mantra that because a film is made on a project-to-project basis, nobody can have any security or recognition. It is slightly different, but all industries are slightly different. Does that mean all rights go out the window? Does it mean someone who has been in the industry for ten, 20 or 30 years has no right to have some expectation to be employed on the next film made by the same producer company that made the last film he or she worked on? Can those who made the sets, did the transport work or worked as the stage hand have no legitimate expectation to be on the next production when it is the same producer? The Minister should ask himself those questions because as soon as we ask them, we realise there is a problem there.

In regard to the agreements, again I ask the Minister to look into this and possibly get legal advice from the Attorney General on these agreements. My understanding is that there cannot be an agreement covering an industry if there is not an employer and an employee. That cannot happen and is not legal. That needs to be looked into because it is meaningless. When I say there is no employer it is not a case of me just alleging that. The Minister should listen to what SPI says when it goes in front of the Labour Court or the WRC. The previous CEO of SPI said she would give further evidence before the court that there was no possible basis, having due regard to the realities of the sector, on which a relationship of employment could be said to have existed between the parties. The parties were the film company and the people who worked on a publicly-funded film production. That is who she was referring to. Whatever the specifics of that case, we should listen to what she is saying. That was on the basis of clearly established industry norms and practices governing working arrangements in the sector, including the operation of section 481. There is no possible basis for a relationship of employment because there is no employer and no employee.

There cannot be an agreement with anybody else other than an employer and employee. I am genuinely asking the Minister to get legal advice on this issue because those agreements mean nothing if we do not have the basics of an employer and an employee.