Irish film and TV industry calls for regional tax incentive to be extended

An uplift to the Section 481 film, television and animation tax credit that offers an additional financial incentive to productions based outside Dublin, Wicklow and Cork should be extended beyond its end-2023 expiry date to preserve the better regional spread achieved by the industry since its introduction, an Oireachtas committee heard on Wednesday.

Screen Producers Ireland (SPI), which represents Irish production companies, told the Committee on Budgetary Oversight that the main Section 481 tax credit, which was extended until the end of 2028 in Budget 2023, was “one of the most crucial incentive schemes” for independent producers in Ireland.

“However, we are disappointed that there was no extension of the regional uplift, which proved very valuable in bringing productions out of the Dublin/Wicklow hub. The uplift has seen considerable production activity across the country from Kerry to Donegal and SPI will continue to advocate for its return in some form,” said SPI chief executive Susan Kirby.

Animation Ireland chief executive Ronan McCabe also expressed disappointment that the incentive was not extended, while the Screen Guilds of Ireland (SGI), which represents about 2,500 crew and their respective guilds across 22 departments, told the committee it was “concerned that the regional uplift continues to decrease”.

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SGI non-executive director Eoin Holohan said the guilds were confident that further incentives to locate productions in the regions would “pay dividends” in the long term.

“We would like to be involved in a discussion with all stakeholders to reach a consensus on how best to promote filming in the regions and create an industry that is nationwide,” he said.

Local crews

The Finance Act 2018 introduced a short-term, tapered regional film development uplift. The scheme initially gave a further 5 per cent tax credit on top of the 32 per cent credit against corporation tax offered by Section 481. This reduced to 3 per cent in 2022 and it will be 2 per cent next year before expiring.

In a submission to the committee, Screen Ireland — the State development agency for the industry — highlighted the development of new local pools of crew and talent outside the dominant Dublin/Wicklow production hub.

Since April 2019, more than 45 regional skills development plans have been submitted to Screen Ireland by recipients of the Section 481 regional uplift and more than 500 regional skills development participants have been tracked on those productions.

The choice between shooting in the Dublin/Wicklow area and elsewhere in the State has typically been based on cost because of the need to move crew to the regions, incurring overnight costs, it noted.

But since the introduction of the uplift, several large-scale productions such as television series Nightflyers and Foundation (both based in Troy Studios in Limerick), three seasons of RTÉ drama Smother (Co Clare) and the films Wild Mountain Thyme (Co Mayo) and God’s Creatures (Co Donegal) have been made outside the central production hub.

Overall, since being tasked in March 2019 to track training and skills development opportunities on Section 481-funded projects, Screen Ireland has assessed more than 160 skills development plans and have tracked 1,700 skills development participants across such projects.

“The benefit to our members is obvious,” Mr Holohan said.

The industry organisations appeared before the committee on Wednesday a week after it heard criticism of how the tax credit was functioning by a group called the Irish Film Workers Association.