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

First, I fully accept the Minister did not rule the amendments out of order. I talked to the person in the Bills Office this morning and she was very reasonable and gave me an explanation. However, I am just making the point that this is a very important issue. Some of us believe the continued operation of the film board, which is imperative for the Irish film industry, should also be accompanied by changes to the benefit of the film industry and those who work in it, and in order to ensure the best return for the State for the considerable amount of public funding that goes into it. That is the context in which we are trying to put in amendments. They have been ruled out of order on technical grounds, not on political grounds, but I still think it is entirely justifiable for us to use the opportunity to make those points.

To be fair, we often have "bash each other" sessions in here but I am not here to bash the Government. The Government, the Department and the officials have engaged not just with myself but with other stakeholders. Nonetheless, I would like there to be clarity about where that process of engagement is heading in regard to the film industry, the film board and so on.

To respond to the Minister, and to put it succinctly, those who get the public money should be responsible for delivering the quality employment. Currently they are not because of the SPV structure. There are cases in the courts and at the Workplace Relations Commission in regard to trying to look through the SPV structure to the parent recipient, or whatever we want to call it, behind that structure but it is difficult to establish who are the employers and where are the employees. If the condition of section 481 is quality employment, then a fairly elementary point is to ask who are the employers and who are the employees. It is not quite clear who is responsible for employees and who are the employees.

One interesting and curious comment came from one of the workers who was, let us say, harshly treated in the recent "Prime Time" programme on RTÉ, when he said he did not mind being harshly treated by RTÉ because at least it proves he exists. He was making a point on these issues. For example, how do we establish who are the people who work in the industry? How do they prove they exist? What rights do they accumulate from one film to the next? How can it be that somebody works for 12, 15 or 20 years in the industry yet they have no employer and have not accumulated any rights whatsoever? It is the hope that the Minister will look at these issues.

It is very positive to hear the Minister say she accepts we should look at the size of the film board. Part of improving that situation would be to have worker representatives, that is, PAYE workers, represented on the board so the workers as well as the producers and the others on the board would have a real input into it, which would make the board more representative of the stakeholders in the industry. It is not a question of making it bigger but of making it more representative by being certain we have workers on it. While I do not expect the Minister to say right now that she is definitely going to do that, I would like to hear her say it is a reasonable thing to consider. We have it in other State bodies and we should have it here.

It would help to resolve some of the problems to which we are referring.

We should also press ahead with the stakeholder forum. While one wants to bring everyone on board, at a certain point the Government should establish the forum and put it to people that if they want to have their say on the industry, they should attend. If they do not want to have their say, they need not attend. The contributions made at that forum will inform our policy, which is important.

The following is a very reasonable thing to ask the Government to consider. If people are in receipt of public funds and they are found to be in breach of the working time directive, employee rights and so on, we have to consider applying penalties, withdrawing the public funding or holding them to account in some other way . While there have been some changes in the section 481 relief, we must zone in on it and make it clear that it is not going to be acceptable to behave in this way. We should expect employees to be categorised correctly. In most areas where there are allegations of bogus self-employment, the control test is simple to apply. If someone is told what hours to work, when to have lunch and is subject to someone telling him or her what to do, he or she is an employee. He or she is not a contractor or self-employed entrepreneur but is, rather, a worker and should be categorised as a PAYE employee. If a person is miscategorised, he or she will not be given his or her rights. In the bulk of the situations we are talking about this evening, the majority of workers should be PAYE employees. If they are not, there is probably something amiss. We know this from the construction sector. That is not to say there cannot be some legitimate contractors in these areas. Of course, there can. However, one would expect the bulk of people in this situation to be PAYE workers and to accumulate rights. One would expect to see a transfer of those PAYE employees and trainees from one production to the next and to see the companies receiving the relief taking responsibility for their workers. Those are reasonable things and if they happened, it would resolve many of the problems. It would improve the industry and its output and improve the lot of those working in it. I am encouraged by the Government's response over the past while. I hope it will follow through in the new year with the forum and the establishment of proper employee and trainee structures and ensure the full application of employee rights for the workers in the industry.

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