Mr. Gerry O'Brien:

That is what happens.

Back in 2011, another actor received the same thing and had to go to a solicitor. Eventually, a letter was issued by the legal department of RTÉ stating "Yes, you were quite right, we were wrong. Here's your money." I do not blame the individuals whose names are on the emails because I do not believe they fully understand the legislation and the complexity of it, but for the management of RTÉ not to know this is going on means they do not know what is happening in their own organisation.

Copyright is fundamental to the entire audiovisual industry. It is fundamental across all artists' and creatives' rights, including sculptors, painters, writers, dancers and performers. It says they will be remunerated for the ongoing use and commercialisation of their work. When a lot of public funding goes into the commercial sector, rather than the independent sector - I take Mr. Dooley's point on that - they are there to maximise the commercial value of the performance. They do that in two ways at the moment. One is they get a buy-out contract which says you agree the amount paid is proportionate. How do you know? How does anybody know at that point that that amount of money is proportionate? The legislation says you can challenge that but the cost of consequence falls on the individual performer because they have to go to a legal department, get a solicitor and prove the amount paid is not proportionate. It is a double-edged sword in that we are given the legislation to protect our rights but protecting our rights becomes very costly. The best way to do it is to have a universal contract - there are templates that exist - that will future-proof the use, so there is a percentage or variable built into the contract at the point of engagement. It does not necessarily increase the cost at the point of production but, for revenues generated, all performers have a toe in the revenue stream at the same point the producers do. That is the problem.

That is the answer to the question. That is what is happening. I have the contracts here and I have the email there.