Mr. Joe O'Connell:

My background is engineering and I know nothing about film. I started the Ashford Studios project after an introduction to Morgan O'Sullivan, when "Braveheart" was being made. At the time, one of our warehouses was used to store costumes and I went to see what was being done with the warehouse. One of our businesses is end of line packaging, whereby we advise on the lay out of factories.

Once the butter, chip or piece of equipment is made, we provide the conveyors and equipment to streamline the factory so it works really efficiently. With this hat on we looked at what was being done with "Braveheart" and it was madness. It was a mess. I got chatting with Mr. O'Sullivan and he told me that as I was successful in business, I should build a studio. I thought it sounded interesting and I looked at the figures for Ardmore Studios over the past 30 years. They did not make good reading. I went back to Mr. O'Sullivan and told him to keep taking the cocaine because I would not be building the studio as it did not make sense.

Studios are infrastructure and we should be clear about this. The ambition to have them all over the country is fantastic but it is not real because it costs an awful lot of money to put in infrastructure. Pinewood Studios in England are dated and very old but they are of scale and attract a huge amount of business. Putting in place scalable infrastructure would mean companies would come and spend €40 million to €80 million, as was the case with "Vikings", but these companies need scale and structure. Who will put down the money for this? In my submission I suggest stopping asking us for money. As it stands at present, we have customers waiting for the next six stages and we can provide them. We are not asking for any money; we are just asking local authorities to stop bleeding us and taking money from us.

Studios will not be built all over the country because nobody will put up the money unless money is received from the Government or somebody is got to build them. Mr. Hickey tells me this is not allowed under European law. The facility in Alicante which was built by the local government was closed. Would such a facility be allowed in Galway? Under current rules it cannot be done. We must build a studio somehow some way, but we cannot have the situation in Ireland at present, whereby we must pay rates even if it is unoccupied. This could break the entire business.

It would be fantastic if we had facilities in other parts of the country. We will definitely have locations used, as happened in the Skelligs. A total of 50% of a production is done in studio and 50% is done on location. We can definitely use all of the country for locations, but a studio such as Pinewood or those in LA must be located somewhere central whereby we can get the spin-off which goes with it. From an educational point of view, we have had great fun with schoolchildren coming through the studio. While we are not geared for tours, we have managed to squeeze in some. People are fascinated when they come in and can see it in operation. Part of the spin-off is people then want to get into the industry. The answer to how they can be trained and introduced is to build an industry and create a centre, which I call a Silicon Valley of film. We will then get the spin off. In the meantime we must deal with the rates issue. I cannot send in a planning application because the huge square footage means it carries huge charges.