Dáil Éireann díospóireacht -
Wednesday, 11 Mar 1998

Vol. 488 No. 5

Written Answers - Film Industry Incentives.

Emmet Stagg

Ceist:

14 Mr. Stagg asked the Minister for Arts, Heritage, Gaeltacht and the Islands the number of films made in Ireland; the number certified for section 35 relief; the gross expenditure and the Irish expenditure; and if she will give an estimate for full-time job equivalents created in each year since 1987. [6477/98]

Minister for Arts, Heritage, Gaeltacht and the Islands (Miss de Valera)

The information required by the Deputy is set out in the following tables.

Table 1.

Number of films made in Ireland

	1993	1994	1995	1996
Feature films, major TV and animation	16	18	27	25
Other independent television production	not available	43	70	95

Source: IBEC reports “The Economic Impact of Film Production in Ireland” for the years 1993, 1994 and 1995, with provisional figures from IBEC for 1996.

Table 2

Number of films certified for Section 35 relief (now Section 481 of the Taxes Consolidation Act, 1997)

	No. of films certified	Gross spend £m	Irish spend £m
1994	11	79	44.8
1995	48	119	73.9
1996	31	84.2	53.2
1997	32	132.9	78.7
1998(to date)	5	28	18.4

Note: Certification of Section 35-assisted projects was first required under the Finance Act, 1994 and did not commence until July of that year.

Table 3

Employment

1993	1994	1995	1996
480	1,291	1,266	1,187

Notes: The figures above represent the direct Irish employment in film, animation and independent television production as estimated in the IBEC reports. Figures are not yet available in respect of 1997. No figures prior to 1993 are available in my Department.