Oireachtas Joint and Select Committees
Tuesday, 2 July 2024
Joint Committee on Tourism, Culture, Arts, Sport And Media
Expert Advisory Committee Reports into RTÉ: Raidió Teilifís Éireann
7:00 pm
Mr. Kevin Bakhurst:
Yes, I do. That is core to this strategy. I welcomed today the endorsement by Screen Producers Ireland, which is very important to us. I am very aware that we are building on great foundations. We work with many fantastic independent production companies already, as I have set out. More of our content is already produced by the independent sector around the island that people do not recognise, because we do not necessarily shout about it loudly enough. I have no doubt that an increase in spend in the independent sector, particularly if public funding is sorted out and we have a predictability of public funding, we can make multi-year deals with independents. It is very hard at present with them, because we have been living year to year. We are only able to sign a contract for a year on many of the programmes, which causes issues for the independents' abilities to make commitments to the people they employ or to find the right people.
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