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

One of the points performers, writers and artists made to me in my recent discussions with them, was that in referring to intellectual property in 1988, Deputy Tom Kitt made the point that it is a complicated area, but intellectual property is protected in Bunreacht na hÉireann in the same way that private property is. It is people's property. It belongs to them.

There is a problem in requiring people to sign away their rights to that property. The Copyright and Related Rights Act 2000 states the right shall not be waived. The EU directive makes it clear that the EU wants to eliminate that practice and assert it cannot be overridden. Rights to property cannot be overridden. I ask the Department to bear that in mind when the representatives of actors and performers are telling us that if they do not sign those contracts, they do not get a job. Does the Department accept that actors, performers and so on are in a much weaker position than producers? Does the Department recognise that imbalance of power? Someone might be looking for a job and the producer says, "if you want to work on this film, you must sign the contract" which was drawn up by a legal firm and states the person must sign away those things. I ask the Department to seriously look into that and I hope it will recognise that the actor and performer is in a much weaker position in that situation. It is happy days for the people in the powerful position. Of course they are happy with the situation. It is natural they would be. However, the people who might question it are in a vulnerable position. I ask the Department to acknowledge and consider that point.

We have been around the houses many times on the employment matter. I will make one more analogy. In the days when there were many dockers in Dublin docks, when a ship came in - think of it like a film project - someone would stand there and say who could have a job unloading that ship. Those people got their pay at the end of the day if they were picked but they had to come back the next day and there was no guarantee they would be picked to unload the next ship that came in. It was project to project.

The reason we have a trade union movement is that people such as James Connolly and James Larkin said that was not acceptable. It is not acceptable that workers do not know from one day to another or to when the project comes in, whether they have a job. What protection do film crew have against that situation in the project-to-project industry? I put it to the Department that they have absolutely none. They were asked how it works. The head of a department chooses the crew. He might have chosen someone the last time but has no obligation. They stated before the committee that on creative grounds it is different. Each production is different. There is no protection for the person. Would the witnesses think it was odd, if the person who hired and fired them was also their union representative? Would people not have to join that union if they wanted to get a job in a situation where they had no right to work and depended on the say of the head of the department? That is the current situation. I do not see how that can be tallied with quality employment? If that is the situation people face, does the Department not think it needs to be addressed?