Mr. Andrew Lowe:

The truthful answer is that there is, but it will take time. One problem we found with the practical experience of regional uplift was that, for well-established reasons, it was only introduced for a short period of time. It ran for a couple of years and was tapered back quite quickly. From my personal experience, when I started in the industry in the early 1990s, it was fairly small and there were only a couple of projects per year. It took time for the industry to develop. That was the case in respect of all aspects of the industry, including post-production facilities and studios. It is a long-term game. The fact is the cinema business is over 100 years old. It is, in fact, 120 years old, particularly in established countries such as France, the UK and the US. We are latecomers to the process. The lowest hanging fruit for regional uplift and activity is incentivised activity in an area. The easiest thing to do is to have the circus come to town, set up and hire as many local people as possible. It is a little like how the industry has developed. When we started out in the 1990s, we were all, by and large, working on incoming productions. At the same time, we got the necessary experience to understand how the process works and managed to cobble together resources to start developing our own projects. That has increasingly become a more important dimension to the sector in Ireland. That is the best chance of engendering the sort of development the Chairman is talking about. Regional players play a crucial role.