Ms Deirdre Donaghy:

I will go through a few of the matters the Deputy referenced. He talked about actors being in a weaker position than a producer. In every sector, a single employee is in a weaker position than the employer and that is why collective bargaining happens. That is why unions are formed as the Deputy said. That is why collective agreements happen. Representative bodies engage in negotiations because the strength of workers is always in their unity. I am getting vaguely Stalinist which is unintentional. The smaller person in a negotiation has power and rights through collective action. If Irish Equity as a union says it will not provide labour until an agreement is reached, that is immense power.

As far as I understand, and as has been said to us, it does not suit the producers that there is no agreement because this continually comes up on every single production when there is an issue about rates, pay and so on. As we have been told and as I believe was said here, they have wished to enter in to discussions with the representative body for Actors Equity and have asked the Workplace Relations Commission to issue to an invitation.

That is how the weaker person gets power in every sector; through collective action and that-----