Ireland makes the work. It should keep the value.

I spent my career on the commercial side of the film business, working on campaigns for Paramount Pictures, Sony Pictures and Marvel. One thing you learn quickly is how studios decide where to make their work.

It's rarely the incentive alone. Ireland's Section 481 credit gets a production's attention. What wins the decision is everything around it: how fast a team can get set up, whether the crew and suppliers are there, and how many different people they have to deal with before a camera rolls.

That last part is where Ireland loses ground.

A production arriving here today has to find its own way through company setup, the tax credit, permits, crew, equipment, accommodation and space. Each one is a separate conversation with a separate organisation. None of them is impossible. Together they add weeks, and weeks are expensive.

So productions do what makes sense. They shoot here, because the locations and the talent are excellent, and then they take the rest of the work back to wherever it's easiest. The edit, the VFX, the post-production. The jobs and the spend go with it.

I don't think the answer is a bigger incentive. I think it's less friction.

That's why we built the Film Desk. It's one point of contact for a production coming to Ireland: company setup, Section 481 and Scéal Uplift, permits, crew, supply chain, accommodation and space, run in parallel instead of one after another. Our target is to have a production active within 30 days of first engagement.

The Film Desk sits inside Culture House, the home we're building for the creative and screen industries at the Freight Building on Sheriff Street. That matters. A production that has somewhere to base its team, close to the studios and talent already working in the building, is a production that's more likely to stay for the next stage of the work.

And keeping the work here is only half of it. The other half is making sure Irish talent is ready for the work that's coming. That's what the Academy is for: skills in AI-enabled production, post-production, VFX and market entry, shaped by what productions are actually asking for.

Ireland already makes the work. It has the people, the places and the reputation. What it needs now is a simpler way in, and a reason for more of the value to stay.

If you're planning a production in Ireland, talk to the Film Desk.