Richard Boyd Barrett (Dún Laoghaire, People Before Profit Alliance) | Oireachtas source

The Government might as well be in a spaceship somewhere off in the stratosphere for all it seems to understand what is going on in the film industry. The Minister said Ardmore needs investment. Maybe it does, maybe it does not. According to the report, it has an investment of €7 million. Does the Minister believe it needs more investment than the John Player factory or a factory in Tallaght or the Dublin sport hotel? Why are films being made there?

The same chief executive officer, who has made efforts to rezone Ardmore for residential development but was blocked by Wicklow County Council, is still running the place. I pointed out that I have heard Savills, the property people, are involved in all of this. Unless I am mistaken, Savills is not interested in making films but in making money from real estate. To my mind, this stinks to high heaven. The Minister is not answering the questions. Public moneys are spent on derelict factories, on the John Player factory, the Dublin sport hotel and on Ardmore, which sits empty, yet the Minister cannot tell us anything about what is going on. Instead, she just promises us that it will all be okay from the spaceship in the sky.

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