I thank the Chairman and the members of the committee for the opportunity to speak here today. There are two basic strands to what I want to say. The first strand concerns the core value of the arts in the life of the nation. It is essential that the arts should be supported for their own sake. Although Ms Moylan and Mr. McCann have covered this aspect of the matter eloquently, I would like to add my own tuppence-ha'penny worth. The second strand concerns the primary economic imperative of sowing in order to reap. Ill-advised short-term savings on seed will have catastrophic effects on the crop. Such savings do not make any practical sense, quite simply, at a time when canny economic investment is of the essence.
I refer to my experience to illustrate what I mean. I started my acting career with the Passion Machine theatre company, which was established to bring theatre to new areas. It was all about inclusion. It sought to bring theatre to people who would not normally think of theatre as having anything to do with them. Artistically, the company explored and reflected people's lives. The audiences, who came in their thousands, felt a real sense of identification with what they experienced. It was uplifting. The support of the Arts Council facilitated the expansion and development of the company. We ended up playing to packed houses in mainstream theatres. When we did ten-week runs in the Olympia Theatre, it was jammed to the rafters every night. In the midst of the dreadful economic desert of the 1980s, tens of thousands of people came to our shows and felt less isolated and less anonymous. They laughed a lot. They felt we were in this thing together, and so did we.
When the economic tide finally turned, we were ready for it and up for it. I would like to think we played our part in it. Our audiences, in turn, inspired many of us to take the leap and commit full-time to the artistic path. I refer to people like Paul Mercier, Roddy Doyle, Ger Ryan, Liam Cunningham, Liam Carney and dozens of others, including myself whose creative careers were fostered at that time. The Passion Machine's cultural dividend is pretty strong. It would be interesting to add up the funding the company received over its lifetime and place it alongside the revenues the country accrued from the careers of those it nurtured. I would say the country would be well in the black, perhaps from Roddy Doyle's "The Commitments" alone. The Passion Machine was just one company. I see that Garry Hynes and Fiach Mac Conghail are in the Visitors' Gallery. We should remember those who emerged from the Project Arts Centre, including Neil Jordan, Jim Sheridan, Gabriel Byrne and Liam Neeson. Visual artists and sculptors, such as Bobby Ballagh and John Behan, have also brought extraordinary credit to this country and helped to define it.
Millions of pounds, euro and dollars have been spent in Ireland as a result of the nurturing of the talent I have mentioned. From its inception, the Project Arts Centre has been able to operate in large part due to the support of the Arts Council. One can imagine the cultural and financial loss we would have suffered if it had been otherwise. It is immeasurable. Gabriel Byrne has asked me to mention the Sense of Ireland project, which went overseas in the 1970s. Do the members of the committee remember it? It was all part of the work of the Project Arts Centre. An unprecedented sense of this country was brought to an international audience as a consequence of something that had been created with the support of the Arts Council.
Arts funding is vital, for national morale in the first instance. This country was founded by dreamers and poets who strove, in the words of Pádraig Pearse:
To give a life
In the world of time and space among the bulk of actual things
To a dream that was dreamed in the heart, and that only the heart could hold.
That dream led to the foundation of this State. Despite everything, we have forged a distinct place among the nations of the earth, in large part due to our sense of self, the vigour of our commitment to artistic excellence and the uniqueness of our cultural expression. It is important to us and others respond to it. In times of recession and flagging spirits, it is especially important to reassert that sense of ourselves, for ourselves. The arts provide that above everything else. We need to communicate that self-belief to the world at large.
We punch well above our weight internationally, partly because we are and are seen to be creative. In literature, theatre, movies and every other branch of the arts, we continue to successfully demonstrate to the world that we can be a productive, innovative and dynamic people. This has economic as well as cultural benefits. People want to come here to be a part of it, whether to work or to play. It has an almost unquantifiable value. It is crucial that we maintain it if we are to emerge from our present difficulties. Funding is critical if we are to continue to enable intelligent and creative people to produce work here that has an intrinsic value to us and our well-being, promotes our reputation and standing abroad and generates revenue.
On a practical level, it is critical that the arts provide a sense of certainty in an uncertain economic climate. The future of the Irish Film Board seems to be under review. I can only relate to my own experience to illustrate how ill-advised such a move would be. I am currently involved in two projects that are supported by the board. "The Guard", which starts shooting next week, will spend between €4 million and €5 million in Spiddal and Dublin, which is pretty good news. It is supported by the Irish Film Board. It has an Irish cast and crew. It is successfully up and running, which is positive news. It is a job well done. The second film is my pet project, a film adaptation of Flann O'Brien's famous and brilliant novel, At Swim-Two-Birds, which is earmarked for next spring. It will showcase the gifts of four generations of Irish acting talent, including Gabriel Byrne, Colin Farrell, Cillian Murphy, Michael Fassbender, Liam Cunningham, Eamon Morrissey, Seán McGinley, Marie Mullen and a raft of younger actors, who represent the next generation. I will even be in it. The technical people we have gathered are world-class. We will spend €11 million in this country as we make the film. It will maintain a long tradition, from “Man of Aran” to “The Quiet Man”, “Ryan’s Daughter” and “The Field”, of showcasing the beauty of the Irish landscape.
Film has encouraged millions of people to come to these shores to see this country for themselves and, frankly, to spend their money. It is interesting to note that since the film "In Bruges", which the Chairman mentioned, came out two years ago, tourism levels in Bruges, which was already a tourist town, have increased by 30%. I remind the committee — I ask members to excuse my language — that Colin Farrell's character in the film called Bruges a "shithole". The images in Irish films speak for themselves.
It has taken six years to line up everything for At Swim-Two-Birds. The support and encouragement of the Irish Film Board has been vital to that process. Film and film production are such that everyone must jump together at the right time for a project to happen. It is a case of all or nothing. The time for At Swim-Two-Birds is next spring. If the board is removed from the equation or the moneys available to the industry are cut, the other elements — all the ships that are now in a line — will be scattered to the four winds and the film will not be made. What a lost opportunity that would be. That is not to state anything other than a fact.
It has been suggested by an bord snip nua that money could be saved by axing the Irish Film Board and transferring its functions to the IDA or a new enterprise agency. This appears not to be part of the new programme for Government although I do not know whether ensuring that "the supports provided by the Irish Film Board are maintained" means the Irish Film Board itself will be maintained. I derived that quotation from a newspaper.
It should be made clear that transferring the functions of the Irish Film Board to the IDA or a similar body is a bad idea. The IDA, understandably, knows nothing about film making. It is a highly specialised area and the IDA would therefore need to consult experts. Presumably it would form an advisory committee made up of people who now or previously served on the Irish Film Board. It would be nonsense and would be one more layer of bureaucracy, which is absolutely the last thing needed at this stage. It would certainly not save money but simply complicate decision making and result in the loss of projects. If there are savings to be made in the Irish Film Board, they should be made by reducing clutter, not by adding to it.
Speed of thought and dynamism are essential to capture film projects for the country. There must obviously be safeguards against abuse. Willingness to engage and certainty of intent are the major factors involved. When producers seek to shoot in a particular jurisdiction, and when jurisdictions are essentially up for grabs, it is imperative to be in their faces immediately with a meaningful and rock-solid tax incentive, a realistic cost base and any other incentive that can be made available to cut through red tape and ease the passage. The essential requirement of any film project, particularly in the current climate, is clarity of cost in so far as that is possible. We have a decent tax incentive and we must not undermine it by breeding uncertainty, which would be a disaster.
I recently had a chat with the massively successful producer and director Mr. Ridley Scott at the Primetime Emmy Awards. He told me had wanted to shoot his Robin Hood movie in Ireland but that, at the time, there was uncertainty about the tax regime. This has since been righted but, in the interim, the project and a number of others went to Britain. Expenditure on the Robin Hood film alone was $200 million. I asked Mr. Scott whether I could quote him in this regard. We lost a $200 million project because we were not clear about our intentions. Fifteen years ago, when we secured "Braveheart", a film in respect of which much of the $80 million budget was spent here rather than in Scotland, as originally intended, and which spawned ten years of further projects, we gave the producers clear commitments regarding the finances and secured the co-operation of the Army and FCA for good measure. This worked and I can still recall the FCA lads flashing enthusiastically en masse on a grassy knoll on the plains of Kildare. It was not a pretty sight and a very pretty sight, if one knows what I mean. It was more than a pretty sight in terms of the balance of payments.
The good news is that Mr. Ridley Scott learnt recently from his daughter, who shot a small film here last year, that the climate has been made conducive to film making again. Mr. Scott wanted to know if the tax regime would remain as it is. If it does, he wants to shoot a series on William Marshall, a 12th-century knight, that would fill the gap left by the Tudors, which series is about to finish. The project involves an investment over a minimum of four years. It is there for the taking and certainty and dynamism will seal the deal and many more like it. I wish the committee the best of luck with its endeavours.
