Screen Producers Ireland welcomes today’s announcement of increased funding to Public Service Media and Screen Ireland

Dublin, Wednesday, 11 October 2023:

Screen Producers Ireland (SPI) welcomes today’s Budget 2024 announcement by the Minister for Tourism, Culture, Arts, Gaeltacht, Sport and Media, Catherine Martin TD, that there has been increased funding for TG4, Screen Ireland and that interim funding has been awarded to RTÉ of €16M for 2024.

For 2024, TG4 has received an increase of €4.8M to deliver their post COVID vision and Screen Ireland received an additional €1.5M to their budget.

Susan Kirby, CEO at Screen Producers Ireland said, “On behalf of the independent production sector, we very much appreciate the engagement that the Minister and her officials gave to us on our pre-budget recommendations and the continued support for policy interventions such as increased investment in TG4 and Screen Ireland. All of these measures have a tangible impact on the sectors growth.”

“Screen Ireland funding is crucial to the indigenous sector which supports Irish creative talent telling Irish stories on screens. This funding increase will enable Screen Ireland to continue its support in the creation of indigenous independent feature film, animation, TV drama and documentary content, and support the development of the Irish AV sector to meet the AV Action Plan targets. Another key role that Screen Ireland plays in the sector is the key role as a national skills development agency. Skills development not only builds crew capacity in the overall sector, it also stimulates creativity across producers, writers and directors so that new ideas are developed.”

Irish language public service media, which is based on a publisher-broadcaster model through TG4, relies heavily on the collaborative relationships it has with independent producers, who enable it to deliver the highest quality and most cost effective audiovisual screen content. TG4 and the vibrant Irish language independent production sector provide rich, culturally significant content to domestic and international audiences. This increase in funding of €4.8M to TG4, while not at the levels recommended in our pre budget submission, will have a direct impact on the Irish Language production sector and enable the creation of more content for Irish language audiences, support jobs in the regions and create more opportunity for those produces. It is recognised that the Minister has increased funding to TG4 of nearly €20M to €57M since she took office.

SPI welcomes the announcement today of interim funding to RTÉ of €16M for 2024. We await the publication of the RTÉ strategy, and the various reports that the Government has commissioned, that will underpin the further funding supports to RTÉ in the coming months. SPI believes that a vibrant independent production sector is vital to public service media to enable it to deliver the highest quality, most cost effective and the widest diversity of audiovisual screen content to Irish and international audiences.

ENDS