Fidelma Healy Eames (Fine Gael)

Last night the Minister for Tourism, Culture and Sport, Deputy Mary Hanafin, launched the Galway Arts Festival. In doing so, she was encouraged to be an artist for a day, as the festival generates a turnover of €20 million and brings 150,000 visitors to the city. Every day, we come to this House looking for solutions to our current economic crisis, yet there have been many missed opportunities.

I encourage the Minister to be a film-maker for a day. Last Saturday, I had the honour of being invited to the world premiere of a Galway-based film, "The Guards". The making of the movie generated €150 million in Galway. However, it very nearly did not happen because of prohibitive union practices that delayed and added extra costs to filming.