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

I wish to ask the Taoiseach about precarious employment, the creation of meaningful jobs and, in particular, the large amounts of public money being put into the film industry. I do not expect him to have all the answers here but I ask him to give the matter serious consideration. Some €70 million per year is put into the film industry through tax relief and film board grants. At a meeting of the Joint Committee on Culture, Heritage and the Gaeltacht in January, representatives of Screen Producers Ireland and the Irish Film Board stated that the investment has generated 17,000 whole-time-equivalent jobs. I do not know if the Taoiseach has seen the very long Olsberg report which was issued last week and shows that there are nowhere near 17,000 jobs in the Irish film industry. That confirms the statements of workers in the industry, who have recently protested about the amount of money put into it in view of the fact that there are virtually no permanent jobs, there is no continuity of employment, and there is widespread bullying, harassment and victimisation of people who ask for their rights and so on in it. A report commissioned by Screen Producers Ireland shows that the film industry, which receives €80 million in public funding per year, does not provide 17,000 jobs but, rather, there are 7,000 direct jobs in film, television and animation. When one strips out RTÉ, TV3 and so on, there are 3,000 whole-time equivalents in the film industry. Those are not full-time jobs because those in the industry work from project to project. For €80 million we might be getting 2,000 totally precarious jobs.

I would love it if the Irish Film Board or Screen Producers Ireland would provide clarity on this issue. How many people are working in the film industry in Ireland today, 4 July? It is likely that there are almost no people working in Troy Studios, possibly ten to 15 in Ardmore Studios and possibly approximately 100 elsewhere, all of whom are on project-by-project contracts. In the context of €80 million in public funds going into the industry, does the Taoiseach believe it is acceptable that there is almost no permanent continuous employment or even some sort of guarantee for people in the industry that they will get employed in the next project?

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