Paschal Donohoe (Dublin Central, Fine Gael) | Oireachtas source

I thank the Senators for raising this matter. The reason I am not proposing to have a further report carried out on this matter is that, in the aftermath of much debate about section 481 over recent years, we have just published a very lengthy report on it in September. It proposed and concluded that this is a section that is performing very well and is playing a very valuable role in the location of important international production within our country and in facilitating much domestically inspired, produced and created films in Ireland.

On the regional uplift, I remember that, shortly after I brought it in, all of the studios that were in the area that were not covered by the regional uplift were on to me immediately wanting to know why they were not benefiting from it, and making the point that what was simply happening was the displacement of activity from one part of the country to the other. I receive a great number of these contacts but this point was made very clearly to me after we brought in the original credit.

I inform the Senators that I have already made a change in the scheme with the provision of an additional year at 5% in 2021. The scheme is already different and longer than it was when I brought it in, by bringing in the extra year at 5%.

This is one of these issues where if a Minister is going to phase out a relief but then does not get to the point where he or she is prepared to stand over that phasing out, we end up with something that was meant to be temporary becoming permanent. Given this is a regional scheme, I am completely certain all of the other businesses and studios outside of the areas that benefit from regional uplift will then be on to other Senators in the House wanting to know why they cannot avail of the credit at the higher rate. For those reasons, the plan we are on is the right one to implement. The key point here on the report, which was on section 481 as opposed to being on the regional film development credit, is that we have already done a fairly substantial analysis of the operation of the scheme, and in that analysis we referred to where we were with the regional tax credit.