Ms Susan Kirby:

I have strongly refuted the notion of blacklisting. My understanding of blacklisting is that somebody is in some way discriminated against on the basis of their union membership. As we sit here today, we are showing the committee the great progress we have made in reaching agreements across five unions. We are also saying that the last Irish Equity agreement, which, in fact, we co-signed, was negotiated and entered into in good faith and was operational for over a month before Irish Equity exited. What I will say is that despite the fact it should be the producers who are aggrieved by that, we are sitting here today asking that, potentially, one of the outcomes of this committee would be to encourage Irish Equity to come back to the negotiating table and reach an agreement. This actually fulfils a lot of what its issues were in terms of dealing with the copyright directive, in our opinion. That would be the opinion of the missives attached in explanation of the copyright directive.

The Deputy raised a very important point in regard to trainees. Not just in our industry but across industry, we are seeking to encourage trainees to join.