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

As the Taoiseach knows, I have been shouting very loudly for a long time about the need to fund and support the arts and particularly arts workers in the current situation who have been starved of funding and supports to date. However, in one area of arts funding there has been great largesse and I call for an investigation into this. It is on foot of a dossier that has been produced by the Irish Film Workers Association. If these allegations are true and very credible facts are put forward, there is a scandal in the Irish film industry that dwarfs the scandal of the FAI and John Delaney. It needs to be investigated as a matter of urgency. According to this dossier, a relatively small number of producer companies have received over the past five years €668 million in tax relief, money from the Broadcasting Authority of Ireland, BAI, money from RTÉ, and grants and loans from Screen Ireland. Under law, that money is conditional on quality employment and training. The recipients of that money are required to sign a Revenue declaration that they comply with all legal and employment rights and issues such as the fixed-term worker's contract. The very same groups that are getting this money are, as we speak, in the WRC claiming that they have no employees, that only designated activity companies are employers and that even though they receive the money from Government, they are not employers.

Incredibly - this is shocking stuff - I have a letter dated 1 September in which the auditors of, for example, the producers of "Vikings 5", "Vikings 6", "Badlands 3", and another "Badlands" production, confirm that during the period no income was earned from profits derived from the exploitation of those series. In addition, they have no employees even though they get the money from the Government that is conditional on quality employment and training.

Even more incredibly, under EU law, Revenue is required to publish the state aid given to these companies. The Revenue documents indicate that for those four productions by those two companies, they were given either €40 million in section 481 tax relief, or €120 million. That is what Revenue is saying. We do not know if we gave them €40 million or €120 million, even though under EU law, Revenue is required to be very specific about the state aid that is given to them. That is scandalous and it needs to be investigated. If there is a shred of truth - the evidence is very credible - something very rotten is going on. Based on the allegations in this dossier, I want a commitment that the situation in that industry is investigated as a matter of urgency.

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