Richard Boyd Barrett
Dún Laoghaire · People Before Profit-Solidarity · Ireland
“It is absolutely incredible that about 50% to 57% of all professional artists in this country live on or below the poverty line - three times the level of poverty in Irish society generally.”
“On a global level, the consumption of electricity by data centres is due to go up elevenfold by 2030. They are hoovering up the water resources and electricity resources of the planet. There will not be much human creativity, art or music if we have no water and no energy. That is what is going on with these people.”
“St. Joseph's Centre in Shankill is the largest care home dedicated solely to dementia care in the country. SIPTU members feel compelled to take industrial action tomorrow because of the failure of St. John of God's to recognise the work and duties that they do.”
“These people actually want to replace human beings and human creativity with AI. That would literally be the road to disaster for humanity. Some people think about AI as if it is cutting edge and the most advanced thing possible, but AI is like the Neanderthal.”
“Against that background, we are seeing these billionaires who run AI looking to steal en masse all of the artistic and creative output of humanity and to profit from it. The artists rightly are asking what the Government is going to do to prevent them making a bad situation for most artists and performers even worse.”
“I thank Deputy Ó Snodaigh for bringing this motion forward. As Deputy Paul Murphy indicated, People Before Profit is very happy to support and commend all the artists, organisations, musicians and so on who are campaigning to bring this forward.”
The complete record
Every one of 1,055 lines we hold for Richard Boyd Barrett, in date order, each linked to its source. Free to read, in full, without an account. Page 15 of 22.
“It wants a commitment to work with the other agencies, including Dublin City Council, the Department of arts and the other relevant Departments. It engaged with the former Deputy, Paschal Donohoe, when he was Minister for Finance, and the Minister for public expenditure, Deputy Chambers, and believed it was going to get the help it needed, but it is now facing D-day. A crisis meeting is happening tonight. It has huge local support. I ask the Minister of State to please intervene and save The Complex.”
“There are 30 artists in residence in The Complex. Hundreds of musicians, artists and so on use it. There have been 180 events just this year in The Complex. There are staff and hundreds of people whose employment is linked to The Complex. They are going to be evicted and effectively closed down in early January for the want of €6 million. The Complex does not even need that money immediately. It will need it over four years. It needs a commitment from the Government to save this venue. That is a small amount of money for a Government that has a big budget surplus. The Complex is looking for a commitment. It does not want a game of pass-the-parcel between the Department of arts, the Department of Finance and the Office of Public Works, OPW.”
“I am a little disappointed we do not have the arts Minister in the House. With all due respect to Deputy Buttimer, he is a Minister of State at a Department that has nothing to do with this. Our identity as a country, our history and our heritage are totally tied up with culture and the arts. Probably more than most countries, our identity and reputation internationally are linked to the arts and music. We have an amazing pool of artists, poets, writers, musicians and dancers. You can go through the list. Nowhere exemplifies that more than an institution such as The Complex, which has been in the north inner city for 17 years. The north inner city, and the northside of Dublin city generally, does not have much by way of arts venues. As has been referenced by Deputy Sherlock, many of these spaces have closed down.”
“The research and development tax credit is now up to €1.4 billion, with most of that going to a small number of multinationals. A small portion of that money could lift our PhD researchers out of poverty. Will the Minister address the fact that these PhD researchers who keep our system going are living in poverty?”
“The very best figure of €25,000 is poverty level. In a cost of living crisis and with the cost of accommodation, it is poverty level and they do not get any of the benefits because it is a stipend, even though in reality it is work. They do not get maternity leave, sick pay or any of the normal benefits workers would receive, even though their counterparts in the Netherlands and Germany get much higher wages and are treated as workers, with a sliding scale of wages. That is good treatment of researchers, whereas ours are living in poverty in the most precarious of situations. I contrast it with the fact that hundreds of millions of euro extra were given out in the research and development tax credit during the budget. The big winners were the big corporations.”
“This Government often goes on about research and development but, compared with their international counterparts, including in Germany and the Netherlands and best practice in the rest of Europe, our researchers, the people who actually do the front-line research and teach people in our higher level education institutions and universities, are treated terribly. Is the Minister not going to change that?”
“First of all, only 30% of the people in question get the Research Ireland €25,000. That increase happened because of a sustained campaign by postgraduate workers and PhD researchers, but huge numbers of them do not get it. It should be a minimum requirement and €25,000 is also, frankly, poverty wages. It is a stipend, of course, so those in receipt of it do not get any of the normal benefits associated with working even though they are workers. In fact, I met with AMLÉ and the Postgraduate Workers Association during the week and one of their biggest demands was to be treated as workers, as is the case in other countries.”
“There are in the region of 10,000 PhD researchers in this country. It is accurate to say that much of the higher education system is run on the basis of their exploitation, because the vast majority of them are earning less than the minimum wage for teaching in our universities and institutions. Will the Minister commit to treating them as workers and to paying them a minimum wage of at least €30,000 a year?”
“Is the Government not doing it because Donald Trump and the powers in NATO have told it they do not want Israel sanctioned for its crimes against the Palestinian people?”
“It seems that when Donald Trump and the big military powers in NATO tell this Government to jump, it says “How high?” We have had a chorus of voices saying we will spend more on weapons. Simultaneously, we are going to get rid of the triple lock and undermine our neutrality. When it comes, however, to the promise the Government made on the occupied territories Bill to impose sanctions on the state committing genocide, which is armed by Donald Trump and the big powers in NATO, it seems now it is not happening. A motion was passed in this Dáil - the Government let it go through, which means the Dáil asked for it - that there would be action on the occupied territories Bill before Christmas.”
“What he wants is a clear assurance and for the Minister of State or the Government to say that he will get an apology and an opportunity to tell his story and that there will be some redress for the lifelong damage done to him through the sadistic abuse he endured.”
“We really need a clear timeline. That needs to happen soon. I am also worried that the terms of reference of this investigation may exclude people because of the type of abuse they suffered. What I described to the Minister of State was absolutely horrendous abuse. Whether it falls within a strict definition of sexual abuse is debatable but it was sadistic, brutal and life-changing abuse. Today, when he was describing the physical and mental damage done to him, he expressed concern about his classmates who also suffered this abuse. He does not know what happened to them but he is still worried about that and about the damage that was done to them because it was so savage and brutal.”
“What he wants to know is when he will he get an acknowledgement and an apology from the State that allowed this to happen. When will he be able to tell his story? I note from what the Minister of State has said that the timeline for this sounds worryingly long. Stephen is in his 70s. Hopefully, he will be here for quite a while yet but people are getting old and they need to know they are going to have some opportunity to tell their story and get redress soon.”
“Stephen described to me in really emotive terms the sadistic abuse that he suffered as a nine-year-old boy and even earlier. He was savagely beaten, humiliated and stripped naked to such an extent that he fled school and never learned to read and write. He described in very emotional terms how he was never able to read bedtime stories to his children, how he imagined it was all his fault, and the shame he suffered all his life. He considered himself to be a dunce and stupid because they were the labels that were associated with him. He spoke of how his entire life was limited in terms of job opportunities. He could not admit that he could not read and write because he did not want to get into the reasons for that. He has only been able to come to terms with it and make a Garda complaint very recently.”
“I just got off the phone with a lovely man in his 70s. Let us call him Stephen. He was absolutely savagely abused when he was nine years old and for quite a while. It is only recently, now that he is in his 70s, that he has been able to acknowledge the damage that was done to him. He wants to know when this investigation is going to be established so that he can tell his story. He also wants to know whether people like him, whose lives were affected for their rest of their lives, will get redress for the savage abuse they suffered at school.”
“It is as simple as that. You get the phone call or you do not get the phone call. There is no protection against not getting a phone call. That should stop. Similarly, there is no protection against actors, writers and performers having a contract put in front of them and being told to sign that or see you later. That should not happen.”
“In the minute that is left, I want to make it absolutely clear that nobody here is saying it is about quantifying arts in terms of pounds and pence, or whatever the expression is. A lot of art has to be subsidised because it gives a big cultural benefit, but it should not be the case that people who work in the industry and are increasingly getting degrees, qualifications and all sorts of things have absolutely no security about the possibility of working in film production. I know it cannot be the same as any other job. Nobody is suggesting it should be, but there could be a significantly greater level of security and there could be a situation where it is not wide open for people to be victimised. At the moment, there is literally no protection against what Deputy Ruairí Ó Murchú said, which is just not getting the phone call.”
“I will leave it at that as I know we are running out of time, but I hope the Minister will seriously take the response on board.”
“I am referring to the big guys, who are clearly successful, and to where there are royalties that could be given to the actors. We do not know where the royalties go because actors are forced to sign buy-out contracts. These things need to be looked into. I hope we and the Minister present will work in a joined-up way with the Minister for Finance and the Minister for Enterprise, Tourism and Employment to stop the game of saying various things are the responsibility of various others. I honestly believe that under the EU directive, we are required to ensure the net result is a serious industry in which people have some security of employment and in which actors, writers and performers get proper remuneration, which they are not getting currently.”
“I am not suggesting that every film has to make a profit. An Irish Equity representative said the most creative thing in the Irish film industry is the accountancy. It is a good line, is it not? The point he was making, which needs to be considered, is that the way we have managed to structure the industry is such that films are set up so that on paper they never make a profit. If they made a profit, they could have to pay somebody back or pay some tax, so they are set up in such a way that they never make a profit. I sharply distinguish between these and the small, genuine filmmakers who are inevitably not going to make money and struggle to get film productions off the ground. I am not talking about them. They need every bit of support they can get.”
“In fact, in many cases we want to give money for productions that will not make money. I back that but the biggest recipients make money. We hear on the news all the time that they have got this or that award, so they must be making money. However, we do not get any of it back, even though we have given the recipients loans. Do we know what the recoupment rate is? One of the film workers' representative groups, most of which have been blacklisted out of the industry and are fighting cases in the Labour Court and so on, produced a report a few years ago showing that, at that stage, loans totalling €176 million had been given and that the recoupment rate was €12 million, or less than 10%. The aggregate figure is now up to just under €500 million. If the recoupment rate is roughly the same as I have suggested, it is very low.”
“After all that money we have poured in to create a company that still does not really have any scale but is one of the biggest we have, it has now sold, and I presume and am guessing pretty pennies were made there, although I do not know the exact figures on it. Specifically for the film board, does the Minister know what the recoupment rate is on that money? The aggregate, loans and grants over that period are just under €500 million, mostly in loans. Does the Minister know how much we got back? Over time, the amount will go up to €800 million. Most of the arrangements are categorised as loans and the main recipients are the film producer companies I mentioned. There are about four that get most of the money. I understand that not every film will make money.”
“I would like a response to the following at some point, if the Minister cannot give it now. Am I not right in saying that EU directives on state aid to the audiovisual industry, which includes money from the film board, say it is conditional on meeting industry tests? Those tests require the building up of permanent pools of skills and companies of scale. Where are the companies of scale? They cannot be companies of scale if they say they have no employees. The biggest companies in this country have tiny numbers of admin people. One, which has been in receipt of large amounts of money, recently sold a majority share off to another big international company, Element.”
“With the money we are investing, is it not worrying that, at the end of it, we have nothing? It is not just section 481. There was a slight batting off of the thing and saying this is section 481, and I understand this is the film board, although the idea that these two things are completely separate is a bit ridiculous. They both go to the same film producer companies. Every single film produced here gets money off the film board and gets money off section 481. The combination of State moneys is a significant fact. The films would not happen without that money. It comes from two arms of the State, but it is said this bit is not our responsibility and workers' rights are the responsibility of Department of trade and enterprise, apparently, so there are three Ministries and everybody is batting it off to everybody else.”
“I do not know if the Minister has an answer to these matters and I would appreciate it if he would look at them. The aggregate is over a very long period but it is €20 million to €30 million a year and then another arm of the State gives about €100 million or more. It is a lot of money each year and it builds up. One point I will make, and the Minister really needs to consider it, is that for all that money added up over time, the State has nothing - zero. We have nothing. We do not own anything. That money has paid for one of the major film producer companies, which regularly goes across the table to tell its employees they are not its employees or makes people-----”
“In the case I went to see, two stage hands were faced with all of those people. How are they supposed to deal with all of them? Where do the film production companies get the money to employ all of these lawyers? The companies have no employees, by the way. They just set up DACs. That is the ask. I am sure my colleagues Deputies Ó Snodaigh and Ó Murchú want to speak. I ask the Government to seriously do something about this.”
“End the situation where the producers the Government is giving money to are essentially blackmailing writers, performers and actors into signing buy-out contracts, because if they do not sign them, they do not get work. The net result of all of this is, if you do not do what the producers tell you, you do not get on the film, whether you are a member of crew, a performer or whatever. You are just blacklisted out of the industry, branded a troublemaker and do not get back in. The "You're never going to work in this town" stuff has to end. That happens, just so the Minister knows. I went to the Labour Court with these people and I just could not believe it. The film production company that was funded by the State had this phalanx of lawyers, legal advisers and so on. It had all of the lawyers.”
“Exactly. The actors, writers and performers do not know where their rights have gone. These are their intellectual property rights. Equity has been campaigning on this and is asking for contracts similar to the PACT Equity in the UK, where there are superior contracts. Often, a guff answer is given back by the producers, that the PACT Equity contract is an English agreement and not suitable to Ireland. That is just nonsense. This is what the actors want here. The actors, writers and performers are getting inferior contracts to their counterparts in Britain. Give them the proper contracts and end the use of buy-out contracts.”
“It does not know if it is going to be played again and again or be a big success, and, therefore, be put out all over the world, on Netflix and the streamers, and be played in a lot of cinemas. How successful it is will determine how much money the film makes. However, if the actors are told they have to agree upfront to sign away their rights, and the company is going to pay them so much now, they lose out on all that downstream stuff. Again, and this is a technical point, the rights for that film are signed over to the DAC. Where do those rights go after the DAC is wound up? Who do they go to? As far as I know, nobody really knows. I bet the producer company the Government gives the money to knows, and its beneficiary.”
“If they want to work on a film and the producer has set up a DAC to do it, they are handed a contract to work on that film, and that contract states that they will sign away their right to future royalties to the DAC. In the past, actors, writers and performers would have received residuals - royalty payments - if the particular production turned out to be successful and did really well. However, the producer companies do not want to give the intellectual property rights to a share of future royalties. Instead, they want to say that they are giving the equitable remuneration that is required upfront. For the Minister to understand this, there is no way the producer company can say it is equitable remuneration upfront. How could it? It does not know how the film is going to do.”
“The State could just step in and say that this is what it means when it gives the money, and that it is going to clarify that, in law and in legislation, this is what it means by quality employment and training. It means that the company the State gives the money to cannot hide behind a pop-up shop that it sets up when it is a wholly-owned subsidiary of the entity that the State gives the money to. That is what I am asking. While the amendment has been ruled out of order, I would still ask the Minister to seriously consider it, although not for this Bill, because that is not going to happen. By the same token, for the performers, writers, directors and others, their gripe also revolves around the DAC.”
“The stagehands then went to the High Court, which very recently made a ruling that said what the Labour Court had decided was ridiculous because it simply took the producer company’s word that these people were not its employees, and it never looked further into it, when, clearly, the producer company was the company that got the money from the State. Reference was made in the High Court ruling to the moneys received from the State as proof that the producer company that was denying the employment relationship is the recipient of an incentive from the State. The State is involved here. I do not understand why the State would not clarify this issue. This has been going on for years, and multiple cases have been taken.”
“The company that gets the money from the Government for quality employment and training will say that they are not its employees, even though it knows them, and even though it set up all of the subsidiaries, which are wholly-owned subsidiaries of the company that gets the money for quality employment and training. It hides behind that DAC and says they are not its employees, even though they may have worked for the company for ten, 12 or 15 years. The company goes in and signs sworn affidavits to that effect. At the WRC recently, a case was taken by stagehands, who won by establishing that the company cannot hide behind the DAC. The film producer company then went to the Labour Court to try to overturn that decision, and it succeeded.”
“However, if, for some reason, the company decides that it does not want them back because maybe they have been asking for their rights, giving out about the fact they do not get holiday entitlements or are involved in trade union activity, or whatever, it can decide that it does not want to employ them on the next production. That has happened to many workers, who then take a case. They go to the WRC and say that the company, which gets money from the State, from the Irish Film Board and under section 481, had set up a DAC and employed them on multiple productions and, therefore, they are asserting their rights under law to, for example, a contract of indefinite duration.”
“Film crew of all sorts will work on successive productions, but for each production, a DAC, or designated activity company, is set up. The people who set up that subsidiary, and who receive the money from the Government, are from the producer company, such as Metropolitan, Element or one of those. It is a standing company, but it sets up different DACs for each film production. When the people who work on those multiple productions go in and assert their employment rights, they will say that they worked on the last production, the one before that and the one before that, and, therefore, they are entitled to work on the next one.”
“To my mind, the grants and loans are very significant. What this Bill is doing is raising the ceiling from €500 million, which we have nearly reached, to €800 million. That is a lot of money to be giving out. I think it is €490 million at present. If we add section 481, which is the other arm of the State giving money to the same film productions, probably over the same period, we are probably talking about €4 billion. It is big money, and there are some other streams of money as well. As I said, I am all for that money and even more going in. However, I do not believe we have the conditions of quality employment and training, particularly in relation to the fixed-term workers legislation, where people have been working on successive productions over the years.”
“I am all for giving more aid and support to the arts, film and culture, but I am also very much for the conditions of quality employment and training, and the building up of a real industry. The Minister can correct me if I am wrong, but I think the EU directive refers to the need to create companies of scale. What is meant by creating an industry is that we create companies of scale and, in other words, we build up a permanent pool of skills to actually make an industry. That industry would have real jobs and, therefore, the people who work in the industry would have some level of security about employment, so it is not just a fly-by-night industry where nobody has any rights or entitlements, or security or certainty about their ability to work in that industry or have an income over the long term.”
“In the case of section 481, public funding is legally conditional on the provision of quality employment and training. I know it is not the case with funding that is coming via the Irish Film Board. That is not written into law, as such, but I am saying it should be. Not only should it be written into law, but we need to make sure it happens. In my opinion, and in the opinion of many who work in the film industry, that industry test, as it is known, is not being met. I am speaking slightly off the top of my head, so the Minister can come back to me on this. My understanding is that the EU directives governing state aid to the audiovisual industry say that the state aid is conditional on the meeting of the industry test and the culture test.”
“I am assuming my amendment was ruled out of order on the basis it goes beyond the scope of the Bill or something to that effect. I understand why, technically, this might have been ruled out of order. To my mind, however, it very much is, or should be, part of the Act this Bill is amending to make the grants and loans the Irish Film Board gives out for film productions far more strictly conditional on the film production companies that receive those grants and loans providing quality employment and training. They are not legally required to under the film board Act but, in general, it is the position of the Government, more via section 481, that public funding to the film industry should be conditional on the provision of quality employment and training.”
“The report states that the British Army had the names of the killers on the night of the bombing but nobody was ever arrested. The representatives of the families think that smacks of collusive behaviour. The authors were also extremely critical of the Irish authorities, including the Garda, and the British authorities for destroying much of the files and evidence so that the people compiling the report could not gather conclusive evidence. The whole thing stinks to high heaven. The representatives of the families have asked for a public inquiry. Will the Taoiseach listen to them?”
“One of the biggest atrocities and national security breaches was the Dublin-Monaghan bombing carried out by the Glenanne gang. There were headlines yesterday stating that there was no collusion in the Dublin-Monaghan bombing. First, the Kenova report yesterday dealt with Stakeknife, not the Dublin-Monaghan bombing. The Denton report will not be published until January.”
“They are knocked off the list because they get working family payment, a little pay rise or whatever, but their income is too low to pay the rents for cost rental, leaving them nowhere. Those social housing income limits must be reviewed upwards as a matter of urgency.”
“I ask the Government to urgently review social housing income limits. The situation is getting worse and worse. One of the biggest phenomena I am coming across is people who are on working family payment, a payment that has given to people precisely because they do not have enough income to live, getting the payment and then being knocked off the list as it takes them over the threshold. It is unbelievable. In most of those cases, their income is too low for them to be able to avail of cost rental because it has to be less than 35% of their income. There is a whole group of people earning between about €40,000 and €50,000 per year who are entitled to no housing support at all.”
“As I reflect on the figures, I can see that the main purpose is to activate land and to deal with land hoarding. If three quarters of the people involved paid the tax, that means they are not acting on it. They are willing to pay the tax. We have said from the outset that we thought 3% was too low because the appreciation in the value of land that people are sitting on is probably significantly in excess of 3% at the moment. It can still pay for land speculators and hoarders to just sit on land. They pay the tax - which, it would seem, they are doing - but they are still making money off the land because its value is going up. This suggests that we need much more aggressive measures in order to deal with land hoarding by people who are trying to profiteer from the housing crisis.”
“Which means that about a quarter got referrals. That is a significant rate of deferral. Will the Tánaiste indicate the reasons for those deferrals? Will he provide any information he has on them? Obviously, the whole point of this is to activate land in order to deliver housing and deal with the scourge of land banking and speculation. As we know, both are widespread. If one quarter of those involved received deferrals, we need to know why they got them and whether they were justified.”
“The residential zoned land tax, RZLT, was introduced with the intention of trying to deal with land hoarding and to activate land that could be used to build housing. The first liability date was 1 February this year and payments were due in by May of this year. How much revenue has been generated? How many landowners who sought exemptions from the tax? How many were granted? What percentage of the overall land covered by the tax was granted an exemption? We want to see how effective this is.”
“If you have the double problem that you are also in a precarious housing situation, in overcrowded conditions or in a homeless hub, you cannot even get the services because of the conditions you are living in. I want to highlight for the Minister of State that in Dún Laoghaire–Rathdown now – I do not know if this is true elsewhere – even where occupational therapists or other specialists in this area have identified priority housing requirements for children with disabilities or special needs, the council says there are too many kids with developmental delays or autism and it is therefore ignoring that or is not willing to take it on board as a priority because it would mean even more housing demand. Therefore, it is not listening to what the specialists say. It is absolutely disgraceful because the consequence is children suffering.”
“Getting an assessment of need is often critical to accessing supports and services the children need but, even if they do get the assessment of need, the services are not available because of the lack of staffing in CDNTs and CAMHS. The consequence I certainly see in my clinic is that children are regressing. This is all about giving children with additional needs and disabilities an equal chance, the same as other children. That is why they need the supports. What is actually happening is they are regressing because they are on waiting lists and their parents are in absolute despair because their children are deteriorating. It also overlaps with housing.”
“I thank Sinn Féin for tabling this motion. I thank, in particular, Cara Darmody and her father for their fantastic campaigning. It is an absolute shame that Cara is out there in this weather at the moment and that she feels the need to do this in storm conditions because of the failure of the Government to vindicate the legal rights and entitlements of children with additional needs and disabilities. It is absolutely shocking that she has to go these lengths. It is obviously beyond disgraceful that the waiting lists for assessments of need continue to rise. There are thousands more than there were the last time I looked at this. There are 18,000 children with disabilities and additional needs on these waiting lists.”
“The idea that we have to give to corporations the right to subvert our legal processes or our democratic processes in order to have trade between countries is an absolute nonsense. It reflects the attitude of the political establishment in this country and in Europe about dancing to the tune of corporations and big business at the expense of the needs, the aspirations and the democratic rights ultimately of ordinary people. We oppose it root and branch.”