Ruairí Ó Murchú (Louth, Sinn Fein)

We all love the idea of a thriving Irish film industry, whether we look at it, historically, through the likes of "My Left Foot" and "In the Name of the Father" right through to "Kneecap" and "An Cailín Ciúin", a lot in between and many smaller enterprises. We all should take great pride in this. We are only too delighted if section 481 is used as a means of enhancing the film industry and ensuring that we continue with this and we can improve upon it.

When we talk about the cultural test that is meant to be implemented and we look at the industry that we should have, we all would like to say that there would be some sort of State buy-in and, beyond that, that we would ensure that we would have a well-looked after and well-paid professional workforce that also ensures the sustainability of the film industry. That has been raised by Deputy Ó Snodaigh. I also have had many interactions on this particular point. Last week, Deputy Ó Snodaigh and I had an interaction with the Tánaiste and Minister for Finance on section 481, and Deputy Ó Snodaigh withdrew his amendment to the Finance Bill on the basis of a promise made to examine this properly. We have all seen the cases that have been before the courts on the specifics of who is an employer. When a film is being created, a designated activity company, DAC, is put into operation. The DAC lasts for the entirety of the film but the fact is it is the employer but then it disappears. When we are talking about the European working time directive and ensuring its enforcement and other issues, they are not necessarily issues because the producer draws down the section 481 relief but the DAC is the employer. Unfortunately, I am almost like a broken record on this because this issue still has not been resolved.

My big fear around this is workers highlighting how their rights have been overridden and even being blackballed. Blackballing can happen in the film industry a lot easier than in other industry because, even though for many years somebody could be in constant employment almost with the same production company, multiple DACs are formed for every film being produced. If there is a particular issue and somebody needs that looked at, be it in relation to the working time directive or whatever, the fact is he or she might not necessarily get the phone call the next time. This is about ensuring workers' rights, which are taken for granted. I do not want to overegg it but we have used the analogy previously of the 1913 Lockout. People require to a call for a production and if someone makes a determination across the board that they or a number of their cohort have been involved in looking for rights for workers and ensuring that those rights are enforced, they might not get the call and the phone will not be as much use as it was beforehand. This is something that definitely needs to be looked at.

An issue has been brought on multiple occasions relating to Irish Equity, copyright and so-called "residuals". Deputy Ó Snodaigh brought it and I have no doubt Deputy Boyd Barrett will as well. It is Christmastime. Could the Minister of State imagine if somebody was forced into a contract that meant that moneys that would be due to them were not due to them into the future and were owned by somebody else altogether and what should be theirs had been taken away from the point of view of their creative endeavours? Let us imagine that person was George Michael or Mariah Carey. They would be down a huge amount. While we are not quite sure that "Die Hard" is a Christmas film or not, if Bruce Willis had to sign away his residuals that would be very different.

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