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

The Minister for Employment Affairs and Social Protection, Deputy Regina Doherty, announced over the weekend that she intended to launch a campaign on the issue of bogus self-employment. That is welcome, although is somewhat late in the day, given that people have been protesting about this issue for years. Will the Minister's campaign include other forms of precarious and insecure employment? Today 100 film workers, possibly more, protested outside the offices of the Ministers for Culture, Heritage and the Gaeltacht and Employment Affairs and Social Protection. I was there with them. It was the latest in a series of protests they have held. They claim there is rampant abuse of workers' rights in the film industry and are particularly angry that conditions attached to the €70 million per year grant of public money that goes into the film industry are not being met. The money is supposed to be attached to a condition of quality employment, which does not exist in reality. The protesters say there is blacklisting and insecure employment and that people are refused further employment in the industry if they raise issues of health and safety, overtime or excessive hours.

There is no policing whatsoever of these public moneys and the precarious conditions under which many workers in this industry are suffering. Will they be included in this campaign? They have requested several meetings with Ministers on these issues and have been refused those meetings.

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