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

I am not mentioning the company or the individual. Without identifying them, I am simply pointing out that this person had worked for the same company in receipt of section 481 relief on multiple successive productions, all funded under the section. His representative group gave evidence to the arts committee here that there was blacklisting and lack of quality employment and training, and he was never re-employed, along with 40 or 50 of his colleagues. That was because they came in here and blew the whistle on film producers for not treating workers properly and not giving them the quality employment and training that is required as a condition for a tax credit which is worth about €100 million. I and the report are asking the Government, which is giving out this money, to require the film producer, who gets the money, to take responsibility for the employees. The Government must make it absolutely clear that they cannot hide behind these Russian dolls of DACs. It would be very easy for the Minister to do it; he should just demand it. The Government should make it a condition that people's service across multiple productions, even if there are multiple DACs, would be recognised by the parent company or the big Russian doll. The Minister could do it.

Then there is the issue of the actors and performers. Their concerns about compliance with the copyright directive are also raised in this report. I was talking to Irish Equity just before this meeting. It was talking about a recent production that came here. Colleagues will be aware of the big dispute going on in the United States in respect of the Screen Actors Guild-American Federation of Television and Radio Artists, SAG-AFTRA contracts. The people who came here recently actually got a waiver from their union to work in Ireland, I think because the production had been set up before the strike, although I am not sure exactly the reason. To cut a long story short, there was a wording in the contracts that gets around the copyright directive so that there could be no change in the copyright directive that would give more favourable terms and conditions to the Irish performers and actors. We have Irish performers and actors and people on the SAG-AFTRA contracts on totally different conditions of employment. The American, or possibly the British ones as well, could be working on a film here in Ireland with the American workers on decent contracts where they do not have to sign away their future residuals. They are called buy-out contracts, it is the same with the British. However, in order to get a job on the film, the Irish workers are required to sign away their rights to future residuals and future intellectual property rights. Contracts are being drawn up to ensure that can happen. The Government has been told about this and it has done nothing about it. The companies should not be getting any more money unless these issues are addressed.