Richard Boyd Barrett: Proposes Wealth Tax to Scrap USC

Thanks. Look first of all I just want to say that this is what happens when you guillotine the finance bill. We end up at a shambolic committee stage where there's no actual scrutiny of the bill and everybody is forced to try and shoehorn in any points they want to make into the first group of amendments. That's what's happened here today. And people have no choice at this stage, there's very little time left. They want to raise issues which if there had been proper scrutiny of this bill we wouldn't have we wouldn't have this. And certain people who spent a lot of time talking wouldn't even have gone down to the committee because of course not in the door, it's not in front of the cameras really, so they wouldn't have bothered. And we all know who would have been there and who wouldn't have been there to do proper scrutiny of the bill. Anyway we are where we are and there's very little time left. So as a mover of an amendment in this group I made the main arguments but to be honest I just want to say that the argument we are making is that the USC was supposed to be an emergency temporary tax which was always unfair because workers paid the bill for the crimes of bankers and developers. So it was never fair. That's why it was introduced. Workers picked up the bill for the crimes of others but as bad as that was it was supposed to be temporary. And the promise to get rid of it, that it was only going to be temporary, has been reneged upon and workers are still having this imposed on them. And now we are being told it is unrealistic to get rid of it. I mean, how can it be unrealistic to get rid of something that you yourselves said you were going to get rid of? And that pretty much anybody who's being in any way objective would say was unfair in the first place and resulted only from the fact that there was a financial crash that was generated by the banks and the developers and the politicians that allowed them run riot in the housing sector. And by the way, when we are talking about the housing crisis, the current housing crisis would not exist were it not for all those crimes that were committed back then and the politicians who facilitated them. The workers paid the bill in terms of the USC and the working people of this country paid the bill in terms of a housing crisis that still persists, is getting worse every single day and where there's no sign anywhere on the horizon that it's going to be fixed anytime soon. That's the consequence. Now, it seems to me that a government with a budget surplus, a record budget surplus, kind of owes it to the working people in this country to make up for all the pain they had to take and to try and resolve those problems and to address that inequity. Because the people who caused the crash, who caused the housing crisis are back making profits again. The banks are back making profits, big profits. The property developers, many of the well-known names, you can see their names plastered around Dublin, on building sites, back making big money again, on massively overpriced property that no ordinary person can afford. So we're saying, wouldn't it be just fair if they paid a tax on their excess wealth, in excess of 4.7 million. That's the proposal of the wealth tax that we put forward and that groups like Oxfam put forward. The 20,000 people who have more than 4.7 million in personal wealth would pay a little tax on that and that would then pay to get rid of the USC on workers earning less than 100,000 euro. That seems fair. And it seems entirely realistic to do that. And don't tell me, because the government's argument is, oh sure, they'd run for the hills, they'd lack incentives. I mean, where's the incentives for the nurses? Where's the incentives for the teachers? Where's the incentives for the ushers and the service officers in here? Or tens and tens of thousands of public servants in this country? Or retail workers? I was looking at the figures in the CSO in terms of average earnings in different sectors of the economy. If you work in food and retail, average earnings 10,000 euro a year. If you work in the arts, average earnings 16,000 euro a year. There's hundreds of thousands of working people in this country who are living in poverty. And we actually proposed, just to mention it, a refundable tax credit for those 20% of workers who earn less than 18,750 euro a year. That there should be a refund, because they don't benefit from the tax credits. If you earn less than that figure, we said they should have a refundable tax credit, you could also pay for that if you had a little bit of wealth tax. To actually help the working poor in this country, of whom there are hundreds of thousands, hundreds of thousands of the working poor. So I don't believe that it's, you know, unrealistic to say we could do that. Do what we promised, get rid of the USC, be fair to workers who had that imposed on them, and ask the very, the multi-millionaires in this country to pay a little bit of extra tax, so that working people could get some reward for the work that they do. In the short time available, I just also want to just mention another amendment, because we won't get to it, as others have done, which is on the film tax credit. And the, today as we speak, there are film workers in the labour court. Film workers who worked, some of them 25 years in the film industry, some of them 30, some of them 35, some of them 40 years in the film industry. But it's as if it never happened. Apart from the fact that the name is on the credits of the films, over all those years, it did happen, they did work on those films, and the government subsidised the production of those films through section 481, and through its predecessor section 35. The film workers, who are in the labour court at the moment, fighting for the recognition of their service to the industry, over all of those decades, estimate that since 1984, when the first of these film tax credits were brought in, that about 4.5 billion euro has gone to the film producers. Because these credits go to the film producers, to their companies. In Ireland, that's dominated by a handful of film companies. Big names would include Metropolitan Films, World 2000, Element Pictures, and so on, with the biggest recipients and beneficiaries of section 481. It's now running at about 100 million euro a year, the section 481 film tax credit. Now, do you know what the shocking thing is? If you take Metropolitan as an example, but Element are the same, when the workers, who have worked for them over successive productions for decades, go into the WRC or into the labour court and say, I've worked for, you know, on 5, 10, 15, 20 films that were made by Metropolitan Films, and they go into the labour court and say, I've been unfairly blacklisted and dismissed out of the industry, Metropolitan Films or Element say, I'm not your employer. The DAC, which was set up for that film production, is your employer. Yes, I set it up, but that's different. So, the state gives the film producer, Metropolitan or Element or wherever it might be, the money. The film producer sets up a DAC for the film, and then disassociates itself from the DAC and says, we don't employ anybody. And the consequence is that people who've had 20 or 30, 40 years in the industry have no recognition of service whatsoever, because they are employed by these DACs, even though they are associated companies, wholly owned by the company you give the money to. Now, under any sort of, you know, any objective view of company law and the relationship between company subsidiaries and so on, these DACs are subsidiaries of the companies you give the money to, and you give the money to them specifically for the provision of quality employment, what's called the industry development test, right? And, in fact, the European Union only allows you to give that money to those film producers under state aid rules on the basis that you will create an industry and provide quality employment and training. But the people you give it to say, we don't have any employees. We don't have any employees. The people you actually give the money to say, we've no employees. You give it to them to create employment, and then when the employees say, you're my employer, they say, no, we don't have employees. Right? So, it's as if they never existed in the industry. There is no industry. But there's four and a half billion since 1984 gone to these film companies. And workers, therefore, are totally vulnerable. They can just be blacklisted out of the industry if they say, boo, basically, on a film set. If they say, I don't want to work, you know, dangerously excessive hours. I want to assert my right under the Fixed Term Workers Act to carry my service from one film production to another. If you do that, you'll be blacklisted. And then when you go to the Labour Court about your blacklisting, you will be told, no, this isn't your employer. In fact, nobody knows who your employer is. Or it's a DAC that briefly existed and then disappeared. Now, that is outrageous, and this government has allowed that to happen. Successive governments have allowed it to happen. I don't know how many times I've spoken to various ministers of finance about this, and it just carries on and on and on, and there is simply no protection for the workers at all. At all. Now, there's a solution to this, and the Budget Scrutiny Committee proposed it, and it was very simple, that you set down as an absolute precondition of giving the money to the film producers that they will acknowledge the service of workers that have worked across different DACs as their employees if they were set up by the same producer company. Right? It's simple. Simple. If you don't do that, the Fixed Term Workers Act means nothing. They have absolutely no rights, no recognition of service, and they might as well not have existed. As they put it, the clock goes back to zero in terms of my employment record at the end of every film production. It's as if I never worked before in the industry, even though I've worked in it for decades. The other group who are also demanding reform by you of Section 481 are the actors, the performers, the writers, and the directors. People who actually do the performance or create the performance with their writing or with their direction. They have said to you repeatedly, or to your predecessors, that they are not getting the fair and reasonable remuneration for their performances because they are forced, Minister, to sign buyout contracts where the downstream revenues that those films generate accrue to the producers, even though their performances under copyright directives and legislation should mean they benefit from those downstream revenues. In other words, they shouldn't just be given a once-off payment and forced to sign away their rights to the downstream revenues of that film if it does well. In that sense, films are unusual because it's not just getting paid for the work on the day. If a film is very successful, as some Irish films are, they then generate revenue for years, potentially. And at the moment, the workers are being told, you don't get on this film unless you sign a buyout contract where you have to give away, waive your right to the downstream revenues. And if you dare question that, you won't be getting on the film. That's it. And that's a breach of their rights under the copyright legislation, which also states in the EU directives that buyout contracts that buyout contracts are supposed to be the exception, not the rule. In Ireland, they are the rule. And it also means that Irish actors, writers and performers are on lesser contracts than, for example, their UK counterparts under the Pact Equity Agreement. Right. And they have asked repeatedly that the government would insist the film producers use the Pact Equity Agreement used in Britain as the blueprint for a contract that the producers should be required to give the writers, the actors, the performers and so on on film productions. And you can crack that whip because you give them the money. And it should be very, very simple. You just say you're not getting the money unless you do this. Unless you recognise the service of the crew, give them the rights and ensure that the writers, actors and performers and directors will benefit from the downstream revenues of their performances or their creative contribution to those film productions. And I remind you what I said earlier on, most artists, writers, directors, performers live in poverty. Most people who work in arts in this country live in poverty. Not the film producers, but the people who do most of the work. So I would appeal to you to do that, to make those changes to Section 481, which I have asked many, many times, and more importantly, the people who work in the film industry have asked, and the writers and the directors have asked repeatedly, that those changes would be made. Those workers will end up in court, because again, Metropolitan have gone in today and said, I'm not your employer, I'm not your employer, even though I set up the company that employed you, or that we say employed you, but actually it was them, saying I'm not your employer, they know them well, they've worked in all their film productions, it's just laughable, it's shocking, it's disgraceful, but it goes on. So, I'll leave it at that. I know... Just to point out to members now, one, two, three, four, there are six speakers left, and there's just 32 minutes. Just to, so... Apologies, last game, Carla, but... I'm just pointing out generally, I'd possibly be seven, so I'm appealing to... If the government hadn't imposed a guillotine, we wouldn't be in this mess. I'm appealing to members themselves, there are six, six, and possibly...