Richard Boyd Barrett (Dún Laoghaire, People Before Profit Alliance)
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The difficulty I have with all of that is, first, that they often refer to collective agreements. A collective agreement in an industry has to be between an employer and an employee.

However, the people who get the relief have told us they do not employ anybody and the designated activity company, DAC, employs people. How can somebody who has no employees sign up to a collective agreement? In the case of the guilds, the people who come before the committee representing them tell us they are freelance, although, interestingly, they seem to be the ones who hire and fire people and decide if people work or do not work and are contractors.

A person looking for a job on a project has no protection against somebody stating that person might have worked on the previous project they did but they are not employing that person this time. There is nothing to stop that. We have had testimony at the committee that people are being blacklisted. The individual cases can either be believed or not believed, although they could be checked. It could checked that the people in question have a long record of working in the industry. The testimony they gave to the committee could be checked, as could the fact they have not been back on a film set since they came before the committee in January. That is something that could be verified. Does the Department look at these things, try to verify them and try to establish whether it is true somebody who worked in the industry for 20 or 30 years, or 40 years in the case of a painter who gave testimony previously, has not worked since the body representing him or her came before the committee and said it was questioning employment practices in the industry? The Department could independently verify whether that is true and I do not understand why it does not do that.

The Department could also independently establish whether it is true that film producer companies are going to the Labour Court and the Workplace Relations Commission stating they have no employment relationship with the people in question. In many cases, they refuse to turn up because they have no employment relationship, even though they received money from the State to do film productions on which those people were employed. Would it not be something to check who is telling the truth here? I favour such independent verification rather than saying that is what they told us and we believe them.

Equity states it is being forced to sign contracts that are grossly inferior to the UK Producers Alliance for Cinema and Television, PACT, Equity agreement. They are being asked to sign away their intellectual property rights, which, as they put it, are the most valuable asset of a performer, writer or actor. If they do not agree to do that, they do not get a job. It is as simple as that. They told us they do not get a job. This is in breach of the directive which states that buyout contracts should be the exception, not the rule. Given the level of State investment in this, if the international companies get to benefit from the royalties accruing to that intellectual property, why does the State, which is financing one third of the film, not benefit? Did the State ever even ask where is its return on its investment? If Netflix or Disney is getting a return, has anybody checked where are our royalties? Has anybody checked, for example, if any of the producer companies have offshore subsidiary companies? Could it be they might? Do we know where those royalties are accruing to?

I only want to see a proactive approach to trying to get an independent assessment of some of our worrying concerns, questions and allegations that have been brought in, particularly by Equity and by the Irish Film Workers Association, IFWA, but I also have received testimony in letters, emails etc., to try to establish independently whether they are true. If they are true, it is very worrying.