Oireachtas Joint and Select Committees
Wednesday, 22 May 2024
Joint Committee on Tourism, Culture, Arts, Sport And Media
Support for Development of Regional Film and Television Production: Discussion (Resumed)
Mr. Anthony Muldoon:
Not at all. It is more to do with the European Commission rules around what is applicable in a state aid map. For example, in Croatia, the whole country is a state aid map and the whole country is applicable. In Ireland, it is 35%. It is to do with European Commission rules as opposed to the Irish Department rules, if that makes sense.
The question that comes from that is that if we have this widespread support for regional film making, which we have, how do we use inventive ways to get around that? For example, in Portugal, their regional audiovisual incentive is based on a low-density map. If you are filming in a rural area with low density, you get bumps on the incentive which is very positive because then you are doing exactly what Mr. Duggan spoke about, which is bringing crew in and building a sector. One of the questions for the Departments of Finance and culture, Screen Ireland and the sector as a whole is on whether we could devise a map and bring that to the Commission. Maybe it would be a map that is based on audiovisual economic activity density.
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