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

-----to this Bill. There are many people watching this. I can tell the Deputy that for a fact. There is much interest in what is going on in the Irish film industry at the moment. Let us be honest, there is also a great deal of dispute about what is going on in the film industry. We need to resolve it because the film industry is very important. As I said as a preamble to all of my interventions on this issue, of which there have been quite a number over the past year, I want to see the Irish film industry seriously supported by the Government. I want to see more investment in the industry to allow us to operate even more effectively on the international stage and utilise the enormous talent existing in many areas in this country, whether it is writing, directing, producing, stagecraft, building stages, making props, lighting, wardrobe or make-up. We have all of those skills in abundance.

The industry has produced wonderful successes and many fantastic films, actors and directors who have given a small country like ours a disproportionate impact on the global stage. I would not want to do anything but support, promote and strengthen the State and public support for the industry. I also want to commend the Minister, Deputy Madigan, and the Minister for Finance, Deputy Donohoe. In response to some of the issues I raised in recent months, I was contacted by senior officials in the Department of Culture, Heritage and the Gaeltacht, as well as officials in the Revenue Commissioners, in the Department of Finance and in the office of the Minister for Finance himself, to discuss these issues. I welcome that there seems to be a very serious effort by a number of Departments to engage with the concerns I have and that have been raised with me to get a film industry that works for everybody and takes us to new heights of film production with all of the associated skills. I welcome all of that.

We do, however, have to address the issues, the disputes, the conflicts and the problems in the industry to ensure that it does achieve what it is capable of achieving. There are problems in this regard. To cut a long story short, what we need to do is to get to the facts of what is actually happening in the industry. There is a problem in trying to do that. We are not getting to the facts of what is going on in the industry. It is slightly disappointing to me, as a great fan of the arts, to discover through various interactions in the past year that there is ruthless competition in this creative industry. That is disappointing. We would have hoped there would have been more harmony and co-operation. There is, however, a hell of a lot of competition.

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