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

The top news item today is that there is a major investigation into a loan of €100,000 by John Delaney to the Football Association of Ireland. It is currently being explored at a meeting of the Oireachtas Joint Committee on Transport, Tourism and Sport. Each year, approximately €100 million in loans and tax relief goes to the Irish film industry. Very serious issues are being raised by workers in the industry regarding wholesale blacklisting, including blacklisting of people who appeared before the Oireachtas Joint Committee on Culture, Heritage and Gaeltacht in January of last year alleging major abuses of section 481 and the rights of employees. Evidence was given to the committee by the chair of Screen Ireland, Mr. James Hickey, that there were 17,000 full-time equivalent jobs in the Irish film industry. We questioned that claim. When the Department of Finance looked into it, it found that there are 2,000 full-time equivalent jobs in the industry, a fraction of what the Oireachtas committee was told was the case. The same film producers in receipt of this funding are refusing to attend the film stakeholder forum recommended by the all-party Oireachtas committee. This situation is not acceptable.

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