Ms Siobhán Ward:

With regard to companies of a certain scale, that is not to say that there is not growth within the type of companies that we work in. Crossing the Line Films started in 1995 to make one film about the Irish Everest expedition. Now we generally try to have two or three productions at different stages at different times. It does not go from project to project, with one project being finished, nobody knowing where they stand and then the next one starting. Projects are constantly getting off the ground while another one is being worked on. Section 481 has been a key part of that growth. We had a project, "The Secret Life of the Shannon", which received section 481 funding and was entirely Irish-financed. That added a layer of production value. The programme went on to win awards. The BBC and PBS wanted to license it for their channels so that when we went to them about our next big natural history project, entirely about Ireland and made entirely with Irish crew, they wanted to be in at the start as full commissioning funders with a much larger budget. Consequently, foreign funding came into the country and allowed us to make a much larger-scale project, with double the budget and double the eligible spend. That allowed us to grow our company, increase our number of permanent staff and employ a greater number of people on that production.

In high-end creative documentaries, as Ms Geraghty was saying, it is not a six-month shoot after which people are gone. The project is in development and one could be filming over two years for a natural history programme. We could have someone sitting in a hide waiting for a badger to do whatever it needs to do. There is a significant amount of post-production involved in crafting strong narratives to ensure these are films that travel across the world and do not just stay in Ireland. In addition to the different companies of scale in the different sectors, which Mr. Rooke mentioned, there is growth within the companies.