Higgins's appeal over actors' fees rejected

Minister for Enterprise Micheál Martin has rejected an appeal to "face down" the Competition Authority over a ruling that unions should not negotiate fees for actors.

Mr Martin told Labour TD Michael D Higgins (Galway West) that "the Competition Authority is an independent statutory agency for the enforcement of competition law".

It was not "appropriate, or good practice" for him to "interfere in the performance by the authority of its statutory functions".

He added, however, that the authority's view was expressed in relation to a specific case, on "possible price-fixing among self-employed actors and advertising agencies" but only the courts could interpret the law.

Mr Higgins, who raised the issue, said the Competition Authority had engaged in an "outrageous abuse of a European directive and competition law". Trade unions were precluded from negotiation with employers on behalf of some of the most vulnerable workers in the State.

He said that artists, musicians, singers and people in the film industry, who were often vulnerable workers, were being treated as individual companies and this was outrageous. Last year Irish Equity "was forced to sign an undertaking that the union would not negotiate fees for actors working on commercials for private companies".

He asked how could an EU directive on competition be implemented in such a way that it undermines a right that Irish workers had had since 1901.