Aengus Ó Snodaigh (Dublin South Central, Sinn Fein) | Oireachtas source

I thank the witnesses for the presentations. It is an area I have been interested in for quite a long time. Some of the presentations clarified some matters for me. I want to focus on the Department of Finance presentation because the opening statement refers to the introduction of an undertaking of quality employment. In many ways, that is key to some of the recent hearings and findings, one of which found that Metropolitan Films was not the employer but rather, the designated activity company, DAC, was the employer.

That raises the whole question which has been asked from the start, namely, who is the employer if the DAC only exists for a number of months and disappears? Where is the duty of care and who has it? Is it the company that benefits from the section 481 relief or is it the company that makes the film and disappears once its work is done? There is a question there.

On regional uplifts, identifying an objective geographical indicator was one of the recommendations and the officials said they have not been able to look at that. I do not know whether they looked at increasing the area limit from 45 km to 75 km or whether they looked at a different aspect. When I was in the Gaeltacht as part of work for another committee, those who worked in the industry there were looking to see whether instead of a regional uplift there could be a Gaeltacht uplift that would help the likes of a future "An Cailín Ciúin". I do not know if that was something that was under consideration when thought was being given to replying to the recommendation about the regional uplift.

The other questions I have relate to the Department of Tourism, Culture, Arts, Gaeltacht, Sport and Media. Obviously, the stakeholder forum is to be welcomed and I will be interested in how that works into the future. It is something that was requested for years. The only way the section 481 tax relief works is that the Department also gives the cultural certificate. Is there a mechanism which ensures that certificate can be used to make sure the companies comply with Irish and EU copyright law? Is this the mechanism that could be used to ensure people are not being forced to sign away their rights? Can it also be used to ensure the blacklisting of crew and so on cannot happen? I am talking about making it so that if people refuse to do the buyout contracts, they still have to be employed. Is the cultural certificate the way we can ensure quality employment exists and the companies comply with additional criteria?