Ms Emer O'Shea:

I thank Deputy Farrell for her question. The Government has made an innovative move to link training with section 481. We are one of the only film and television tax credits worldwide to do so. When we apply for a section 481 certificate from the Department, we must also apply to Screen Ireland's section 481 development team for a training certificate, which is done by completing a skills development plan.

To give some information on a skills participant, a skills participant is defined as either a new entrant, a trainee, an animation junior or an upskiller. When we have completed the skills development plan, we organise to meet with the Screen Ireland team to discuss the plan and how the skills will be implemented on set. We ensure each skills participant has a mentor from his or her own department. On larger productions we might have a skills development officer who tracks progress reports from trainees, feedback forms and task sheets. On smaller productions, Element Pictures would look after that in-house, an example being if we had a project that perhaps only had post-production work being done in Ireland.

Element Pictures welcomes the recent inclusion of upskillers to the skills development team training plan because an upskiller is a skills participant who is not a new entrant, so this allows for career progression within the industry. In 2021, Element Pictures worked with 23 trainees and eight upskillers across four projects. We have seen crew go from new entrants to competent trainees. We have seen career progression and given jobs for the first time in senior roles such as directing, producing, editing and production management. Element Pictures recognises its responsibility. In terms of training and skills development, we are happy to play our part. Especially as the industry grows, we need to meet the demand and it is important we have sufficient numbers of trained people to do so.