Aengus Ó Snodaigh (Dublin South Central, Sinn Fein)

I hear the reluctance, which has been there all along, to add conditionality to section 481. There is an acknowledgement of changes in a flourishing industry. We need to make sure that while it flourishes the message goes out from here, from the Government and from Revenue that any attempts to mislead will not be tolerated in any shape or form. This applies to only one or two companies, but it seems to be a habit to try to bypass the EU copyright directive in any way or force artists to waive their hard won rights or to waive their rights to income because a lot of this concerns residuals. If a film is successful, money comes back from it being shown over and over again. Artists have residual rights to their own work. The EU directive sets out in black and white that performers have a right to equitable remuneration which cannot be waived. That is the intention of the amendment. The contracts I quoted very clearly demanded the waiving of those rights. At least this issue has been given a hearing. If it continues in the way it is going, we will be back to this again next year if there has been no movement. We will deal with this again if Equity and other representatives of performers are able to show us that artists are being asked to work under worse conditions than those employed on the same production in England and who have the rights that pertain in England rather than those which pertain here. That means they work under lesser conditions. I am glad we have had the debate and I welcome the commitments the Minister has given.

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