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

Yesterday, there were about 100 film workers protesting outside the Dáil for the second week in a row. Does the Minister know why they were protesting? They were there because €70 million is given out in tax reliefs to the film industry. The film industry came to the Oireachtas a few weeks ago and said that it accounts for 17,000 jobs. There are not 17,000 jobs. There are no jobs as a result of that money. Currently, I would be surprised if there were 500 people working, and most of those who are will not have a job in a few weeks. We are not examining whether real jobs are being created or whether real investment is happening. In fact, in his report Mr. Seamus Coffey points out that the tax breaks these firms are getting are so high that the profits are driving up our gross national income so that we have to pay bigger contributions to the European Union, but the tax breaks mean that we do not get the benefit on the other side in tax revenue. Taking research and development as an example, €708 million last year went to the big corporations in research and development tax breaks. Would it not be better to spend that money in the public universities, rather than giving it away to Apple, Google and Facebook?

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