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

I am asking the Minister to meet these workers. She is obviously meeting Screen Ireland. Will she meet these workers, who have asked to meet her, to hear their side of the story? It is a direct question and I wish she would answer it. Unless she gets all the stakeholders involved in this discussion, she is not being serious about trying to address the problems.

The Mel Gibson action is very serious. That could shred our international reputation, never mind the fact that serious sums of public money are involved. That needs to be investigated as a matter of urgency. Whatever about the individual case, we need to establish whether there are loopholes that can be exploited and are being exploited. Something needs to be done about the fact that we are putting €80 million into an industry and there is no standing workforce. A child could take €80 million and employ a few hundred people or 1,000 people for a year, but there is no standing workforce. It is, so to speak, a hire 'em and fire 'em workforce. If anyone dares say a word about their rights, compliance with EU directives or the working time directive, and if he or she does not sign up to certain agreements that are imposed on him or her, that person is blacklisted. That cannot go on.

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