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

The programme for Government also speaks about developing the arts and culture sector. I will return to the points I made earlier so that the Taoiseach will fully understand them. I appreciate that he said he would look into them. Sometimes, I think there is a lack of understanding of what goes on in the arts, culture and film sector because of the magic and dazzle of film. However, behind that dazzle, there are two critically important groups. One comprises people like those involved in set construction, the stage crew and the props people - the production line who make the film happen. It is the same people again and again who make these films, all around the country for different film producers and all funded with public money. Those people work for years and years on fixed-term contracts but never is their service acknowledged or recognised even though they have been doing it for years. That has been going on for years. They are totally vulnerable. They are one category.

The second category comprises the creatives, the performers. They have a different problem. In the past, they used to get royalties from any film they did in perpetuity. Producers in Ireland are almost unique in the world in demanding that actors and writers sign away their rights to those future royalties to the producer company. They are demanding they get back those residuals, as they are called, just as actors, performers and creatives in the rest of the world have a right to their residuals.

See this speech in context