Patrick O'Donovan (Limerick County, Fine Gael)
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I will take the last point first. I am not going to tell people how much they have to charge for a suite of furniture or a pound of rashers. We thankfully live in an open, liberal and modern democracy and in a market that is not a communist regime. I am not going to tell Disney how much it does or does not charge. It is a matter for the consumers to decide if they want to watch that or purchase it. There is no doubt in my mind, as I previously said to the Deputy, that any levy that has ever been imposed by the Government for any purpose is always passed on to the consumer. That is inevitable. I am sure there would be a different version of the Disney increase if I had put on that levy last year. The Deputy would now be saying it was because of me, that I had brought this upon us and that I could not only take responsibility for the Disney increase, but I could also take responsibility for the Netflix increase, so am I not glad I did not? We have said that we will monitor it over the coming three years. I told them when I met them in America about playing ball with us in respect of having a decent amount of production coming out of Ireland. There has been a strong pipeline, as Screen Ireland will tell the Deputy. I know the committee has met Screen Ireland and engaged with it. A strong pipeline has come out and there is a strong pipeline coming in. I know the Deputy's neck of the woods and that of Deputy Brennan beside it in County Wicklow have done well out of this. I know they will continue to do so.

I turn to the arts. This is the largest arts budget in the history of the State. It puts to bed once and for all the question of whether will have State support for our artists. We now have it and we have got that commitment, which is really important. As I said in my opening statement, it gives me an opportunity as regards all of the stuff the committee fed in through individual engagements and representations. The public consultation was the largest our Department had ever run. It was probably the largest most Departments had ever run. It was universally positive. Immediately after Christmas as we work through all of that, I hope to be in a position to bring forward a submission to the Government for approval on how we will move forward. I have no decisions made with regard to the existing 2,000 and I do not think it would be fair to comment on that until I have. As soon as I do, and as I previously said through the Chair, if anybody wants to send me suggestions via email or whatever now that we know we have this nailed down and that the quantum is there, I will certainly examine all suggestions. I will consider everything.