There is €125 million a year, I think, or probably higher, in section 481 film tax support for the film producers of this country. You can add in another €20 million or €30 million from Screen Ireland. It is a lot of money; billions over several decades. Is the Minister enforcing - I believe he is not - the quality employment and training condition? It is about guaranteeing decent quality employment and training for the people who work in the industry. In truth, actors are not being looked after in terms of their r…

The Minister's Department gives out section 481. The idea that he is not responsible for policing the quality employment and training condition is ridiculous. We need joined-up thinking. Everybody is playing pass the parcel - the Department of arts, the Department of finance and the Department of enterprise - and nobody is responsible. Therefore, workers are blacklisted, overworked, stressed and not treated properly. Their rights are not vindicated. Actors, screenwriters and so on are forced to sign buyout contract…

The Minister is getting his information from producers.

On the work of crew, this survey was responded to by 800 workers. Has the Minister or Deputy Byrne seen it? No, because Screen Ireland has seen it but they have not published it because it paints a very unflattering picture. The words used by the film workers include, "Producers' reluctance to give the crew their full needs", "night shoots and rest days that aren't paid properly", "tight schedules", "long hours", "being hired as a trainee when there are no leads or assistants", "overly long work day", "budget const…

It is blacklisting.

I thank Deputy Coppinger for bringing the Bill forward. I am very happy to support it. I love sport. I am passionate about sport but I find it had to hard to understand how anybody could gain entertainment from a large group of people on horseback, with a pack of dogs, pursuing a frightened animal, and then watching and celebrating as that frightened animal is torn to pieces by dogs. That is not a sport. That is just an exercise in cruelty and barbarism. As has been said, this is not an ancient Irish rural traditio…

He did not defend it at all.

He did not. What he did was try to misrepresent the Bill. That is what he did.

He said there were things in the Bill that are not in the Bill, and then he implied that, really, this was part of a wider agenda of opposing rural pursuits, which it absolutely is not. However, the Minister did not actually defend it. He did not defend it because he knows it is indefensible. It is utterly indefensible. Please tell me how it is a legitimate form of the sport to tear a frightened animal limb from limb with a pack of dogs and a big gang of people on horseback. It is nothing of the sort. As for the id…

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 abu…

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 as…

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 suf…

There is no facility for that.

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 mot…

Where is the occupied territories Bill?

No action.

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?

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 durin…

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 ou…

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 e…