Mr. Alan Duggan:

Go raibh maith ag an Leas-Chathaoirleach. I thank the Vice Chairman and the members for the kind invitation to appear before the committee today. I am CEO of Ardán and I am joined today by Mr. Gar O'Brien Collins, who is our WRAP - western region audiovisual producers fund - executive.

Ardán is a talent development agency focused on film, TV, games and animation. Formerly known as the Galway Film Centre, we provide a platform for creators to tell their stories and provide support through advice, training, resources and funding. Ardán manages a number of key initiatives that inform our point of view on regional industry development. In collaboration with the Western Development Commission, Ardán manages the WRAP fund and commission supported by the local authorities of Clare, Donegal, Galway City and County, Leitrim, Mayo, Roscommon and Sligo, as well as Údarás na Gaeltachta.

We also manage the National Talent Academy for Film & TV on behalf of Screen Ireland, which has a special focus on equality, diversity and inclusion and includes regional voices. On behalf of Galway city and county, we also manage the UNESCO City of Film designation that focuses on grassroots opportunities for filmmakers. We also chair the Western AV Forum, a collective of key stakeholders for film, television, games and animation in the west of Ireland. It is these initiatives that give us a top-to-bottom view of the industry in the regions. Based on this view, we are calling for the establishment of a ten-year regional film and TV industry strategy focused on sustainable regional capacity and activity through investment in regional producers, regional crew, regional infrastructure, and regional production.

As was mentioned already, approximately 75% of section 481-supported production in Ireland is based on inward production. Most of this activity is driven by a handful of Dublin-Wicklow-based production companies with established international reputations. This concentrates production activity in these areas. This draws crews away from the regions for continuity of work while simultaneously leading to a narrative around the cost of moving a production into the regions because of the lack of crew outside Dublin-Wicklow. In this respect, initiatives such as the section 481 regional uplift scheme and Screen Ireland’s nationwide fund have sought to address only the symptoms of this issue, which are the cost of travel, accommodation and per diemsassociated with the travel of crew from Dublin. A holistic strategy must instead deal with the root cause of this regional drift cycle by anchoring regional production with regionally-based producers.

The regional development strategy must, therefore, address the imbalance between the regions and Dublin-Wicklow while respecting the symbiotic relationship between inward and indigenous production. Inward production into the regions must continue to be supported to maintain activity while indigenous regional producers are supported to grow. This can be achieved through: agnostic or automatic funding supports, such as a return to the full regional uplift scheme for a minimum of ten years, alongside a 40% incentive for Independent films and a Gaeltacht uplift scheme; a creative regional development and production support through positively-biased discretionary funding provided through Screen Ireland; cluster development through the support of increased infrastructure and crew training leveraging existing competencies; and the business development of regional producers via funding and mentoring through the Department of Enterprise, Trade and Employment. I again thank the committee for its attention and we welcome questions from members.