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

Do not worry. The rest of the Bill will move along. This is the last chance I will get to say what I want to say.

It is systematic and it needs to be addressed. When we are making reference to SPI-ICTU construction agreements we need to recognise that SPI is not registered. This also relates to what is a reasonable suggestion, certainly one that bears consideration, namely, a sectorial employment agreement. SPI could not do that because it is not a registered trade union of employers. It is a charity which in itself is a very odd thing because charities are precluded from representing in employment industrial relations issues. Therefore, it cannot actually sign an agreement because it is not the employer. Every time somebody takes a case against SPI its members say they are not an employer. It cannot have it both ways, so that needs to be addressed. That is on the construction crew side of it.

On the residuals and the buy-out contracts, again something can be done about that, collectively, because they are being forced to sign buy-out contracts. SPI has advised that some actors or performers prefer those in certain cases. We have correspondence to this effect. The representatives of the actors and performers have stated categorically and voted on it twice that they want Pact Equity. That is what they want. Whatever the Minister is being told it is simply not the case that there is any ambiguity about that. They have democratically discussed the issue, they voted twice and that is what they want. The Minister should not listen to anybody else. By the way, they are quite concerned about so-called negotiations because their view is the producers are determined to resist changing the status quo where they are forced to sign these buy-out and inferior contracts.

Lastly, I refer to the wider industry. We discussed this with the research and development credit. In many other areas we give money to the private sector, to small producers, big producers and to companies in the private sector but we also have our own State sector, namely, the universities. We discussed that the other day. It is an open question as to whether the best way to stimulate the industry and support the creative pool of talent we have is for all of it to be outsourced in this way and dependent on private companies seeking a relief. I am not saying we should not have the relief, but it might be an idea to seriously consider or at least experiment with other ways of developing the film industry. Looking at the output of the Irish film industry, first of all-----