Ruairí Ó Murchú (Louth, Sinn Fein) | Oireachtas source

I apologise that I was not able to be here earlier when the committee was dealing with this matter. A considerable amount has been said, and it was said previously. We all want to see a thriving film industry. Obviously, the budgetary proposal was that the €70 million cap on the section 481 credit would move to €125 million. That is a greater amount of money that the State will put into the film industry. It is a means of ensuring that we build and sustain a film industry. The fact is that we are not meeting the necessary conditions for quality employment and training. At times, we may have questions about cultural conditionality in the context of certain matters, but nothing has been enforced in any way, shape, or form.

On the amendment I have tabled, a huge amount relates to Irish Equity and everybody's understanding that how actors made money, particularly when you are talking about Matt Damon, Ben Affleck or Leonardo DiCaprio, was on the basis of residuals. If they got a decent part, they would get residuals and get paid constantly during leaner times. The fact is that the power differential is huge, whether you are a writer, composer or crew member. That is the problem. On some level, and this is not overdramatising matters, it is almost like a scenario from 1923 in the sense that the producers draw down the money, and, as Deputy Boyd Barrett said, they are not the employers, and there will be a hood who will make a determination as to who will work in the place. If you fall into the scenario of being, for want of a better term, a troublemaker or a problem, it is pretty easy for someone not to phone you. Therein lies the weakness, and the fact that we do not have governance.

In fairness to the Joint Committee on Budgetary Oversight, a huge body of work was done and a massive number of recommendations. The number one recommendation is the need for a stakeholders forum. We need to get beyond the fact that the Department of Tourism, Culture, Arts, Gaeltacht, Sport and Media is talking to the Department of Finance and that we get to the point of having this stakeholders forum so that all these issues can be put on the table. These are instances where some of these workers are talking about being forced to sign away residuals and being left in worse conditions. There are crew members who say they have been blackballed. I accept that this is a particularly difficult time because a huge number of people are not being employed. We are constantly hearing of people, even when they receive employment offers, say that their conditions are way less attractive than those they would have enjoyed previously. That tells me there is absolutely no protection for those workers, composers or any of the other artists involved.

I am not going to rehash all the points that have been made. We get the idea that the producer draws down the money. The DAC is the employer. It then disappears, so there is no chasing anybody afterwards. If we are putting all this money into the industry, I like to think that our aim would be that we would have some sort of stake or whatever in an industry that was thriving and providing really good quality employment. This is what is also necessary for us to sustain the industry. What we also hear about at times in some of these film operations is that it has got for this is so that certain people can make more money. More apprentices are being employed now than people who worked in the industry previously. What that means is that they will obviously be under severe pressure. Everybody wants to work, but the quality might not be there at certain times.

We have heard about films that were shot in Ireland and then reshot in Britain and other countries. That would worry me. We need to consider these amendments because that is something we can do today. Beyond that, we have the recommendations. I am fairly sure the Minister is aware of the over and back regarding his Department and that of the Minister for Tourism, Culture, Arts, Gaeltacht, Sport and Media, Deputy Catherine Martin. We really need to get that stakeholders' forum in place. We need to put this in train. As I said, we are all in agreement. We have seen the successes of the film industry. We need to make sure they are successes for everybody who works in the film industry and that it is sustainable in the long term.