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. Paul Cummins:
On the point about colleges and students, when we set up Telegael in 1988 in Galway, there was probably no industry in the country from an independent producer point of view. We soon realised that, first, we did not have any producers around us and, second, we did not have the talent. For these reasons, we worked with Údarás na Gaeltachta and RTÉ and organised some courses in the early 1990s. Most of the people who attended those courses are involved in the industry today in one form or another. Now we are working with the third level colleges in Limerick, Galway and Athlone because we have a demand for graduates based on our production. It is production that drives the demand for all of this. We are working with the colleges now to structure courses to service our needs and other needs in animation and other areas. They even include subtitling and audio description courses. We are working with the colleges on that. We have to drive the production on the ground. We have to incentivise that in some way or another to bring the work in. That will then create a demand for graduates who will have jobs to go to at that stage.
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