Ms D?sir?e Finnegan:

Screen Ireland's view is that there is a very fine and an important balance in respect of international productions coming in, the large studios and the opportunities that are provided when those productions film in Ireland or choose Ireland as a destination for production. However, the priority is around the longer term goal for the industry and, as Mr. Esslemont mentioned, supporting and empowering the independent production sector to develop Irish IP, to produce it and to distribute it around the world. For example, we recently expanded our development unit within Screen Ireland to make sure we are, as much as we possibly can, funding Irish creatives, whether through producers and production companies or through our launch of a few schemes through the pandemic that we have been continuing. I refer to programmes like Spotlight, whereby we support Irish writers to develop their own IP and to come in with scripts or screenplays. We also did a programme called the Voice, which was for directors. They could independently develop a piece of work and then take it forward to the next stage of development. We feel it is essential to strengthen the position of the Irish producer and production company in protecting and retaining rights as much as possible.

In recent amendments to the Online Safety and Media Regulation Bill 2022, which were brought in just before the end of the year, due regard was included in respect of the retention of rights and intellectual property. It is really important to maintain sustainable funding for the domestic local sector to ensure those opportunities and make sure that as much financing as possible can be raised within the domestic market so when those producers or production companies go out to leverage other financing, they are in a stronger position.