If Screen Ireland were a movie, it would be The Invisible Man. Though audiences can’t see it, it’s the star of the show. As the development agency charged with growing Ireland’s indigenous film and TV sector, attracting overseas productions and promoting Ireland’s cultural expression abroad, it’s also one of those versatile actors that can turn their hand to anything.
Increasingly, it’s being asked to do more with less. What started out as the Irish Film Board was rebranded in 2018 as Screen Ireland, tasked with developing the animation sector, TV drama and documentary and, as of last year, digital games too.
The sector was worth €544 million to the economy in 2025, a record level of production spend, up 26 per cent on 2024. It has a gross value-added tally, or boost to the overall economy, of more than €1 billion.
But perhaps the larger part of its value, in terms of soft power and the tourism generated by people visiting Ireland to see locations such as Skellig Michael – now a significant character in Star Wars – is incalculable.
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From 2021 to 2024, Screen Ireland invested more than €120 million, supporting 116 features, 64 TV series, and 120 short films, driving job creation and skills development too.
The result has been the development of what is now one of the Irish industry’s key strengths – talent.
“So often what’s cited by international partners is that the creative talent coming from Ireland is remarkable,” says Désirée Finnegan, chief executive of Screen Ireland.
“Obviously that includes all the actors we’ve seen in recent years and their incredible success in the Academy Awards, and across international awards in general, but also the screen writers and directors, across both cinema and TV.
“The other area we are very strong on in Ireland now is our independent producers, who are among the best in the world. Their competence in raising complex financing and managing multiparty co-production structures for film and TV is remarkable.”
It goes for crew too. “Whether it’s cinematographers, costume designers, editors or visual effects, we have an incredibly strong mix of both creative artistry and technical skill in the craft as well.”
All of this has been underpinned by innovative skills building within the industry. Since 2019, qualifying film and television productions looking to avail of the Section 481 tax relief have had to submit an approved skills development plan to Screen Ireland as part of their application.
This is paying dividends, providing entrants to the industry with the structured learning that helps to build careers.
“We were one of the first in Europe to do that and it has been incredible. We have had more than 6,000 skills-led placements in the last year alone,” says Finnegan.
“And it’s at all levels, both entry level coming into the industry and upskilling for people who are in different crafts or departments.”
Having trained people up so well, keeping them employed is now key.
That has not been helped by the turning off of the spigot by streamers such as Amazon and Netflix, whose “streaming wars” of the 2010s and early 2020s led to a splurge in production as a way to win market share.
“It has caused a really significant disruption and contraction across the industry globally. Ireland has been in a very strong position, having had all the activity we’ve had in screen production, but this has been an unprecedented transformation which is reshaping how film and TV is created, how it is financed, how work is distributed and how audiences are discovering it,” says Finnegan.
Then there is the jump scare of AI, a subject with which the industry is still coming to terms. While keen to use it for greater process efficiencies, the race is on to ensure the intellectual property that underpins the sector is protected.
“We’re all in agreement that the purpose of any technology related to the screen industry is to serve human creativity,” says Finnegan.
“This is a really important moment for the industry. We have grown significantly over the last few years but we can’t be complacent,” she says. “It’s a very competitive area to be in.”
It’s a juncture that requires a step change in support.
“Ireland’s screen industry is a €1 billion economic engine supporting 16,000 jobs, but world-class storytelling, high-quality production capabilities and our existing tax incentives are no longer enough on their own in an ever more fragmented audience market,” says Nicola Cooke, director of Audiovisual Ireland.
“We are at a critical inflection point – global streaming platforms are consolidating, production costs are surging, and without targeted State support or legislative policy, domestic producers risk being forced to surrender the IP rights to their own creative work.”
In that same vein – and in an age where disinformation and misinformation are rife – Ireland needs to follow the lead of many other European countries and provide multiannual funding to public service media, she adds, to safeguard media plurality and independence.
Currently European Broadcasting Union data shows Ireland’s public service media funding stands at just 0.08 per cent of GDP - significantly below the EU average of 0.14 per cent, and among the lowest in western Europe.
History has proven that the right state supports are transformative for the industry. Back in the 1990s Aebhric McGibney, director of public and international affairs at Dublin Chamber, was an economist working for what was then Ibec’s audio visual production federation, helping to develop the economic multiplier model for the industry that made the case for the Section 481 tax relief.
The problem the sector faced at the time was the fact that, by their nature, film productions came and then left, taking their local spend with them.
“The goal was to leverage the tax relief to bring in FDI and to get to a level of activity that meant people could go from project to project and stay in employment,” he says.
It worked. And from that came the realisation of the importance of not just attracting productions from overseas, but of developing our own IP and retaining it.
“Owning the intellectual rights is the ultimate goal, because the IP is where the value added is, and it tends to also influence where productions are set,” says McGibney.
Right now the industry is looking for the Government to establish a Content Stimulus Fund to support high-end productions, ensuring Irish producers retain intellectual property and maintain competitiveness with the UK and other international bases
But other challenges include concerns that the EU’s new €8.6 billion AgoraEU culture budget will not be fully ring-fenced, as the bloc looks to retain budgetary wriggle room in a difficult geopolitical landscape.
For Ronan McCabe, chief executive of Animation Ireland, that’s a concern that couldn’t have arisen at a worse time for his members, who rely heavily on public service media, the importance of which can’t be overestimated when it comes to children’s screen content.
What’s more, if public sector broadcasters “don’t get those audiences when they are young, they are never going to get them when they are older,” he points out.
Given the disruptive impact of AI on animation, he too believes the focus now is on building indigenous IP. “The only way you can build companies of any value is to retain IP,” says McCabe.
The introduction of a content levy on streamers, a move media minister Patrick O’Donovan has dismissed, would help the animation sector, creating a multimillion Euro pool for local productions.
“If you bring in the levy, it gives Irish producers more heft. When we’re going overseas to sell a project, or get further finance, the more funding we can bring to a project, the greater the amount of IP that we can retain,” he explains.
“That gets you into a whole virtuous circle. If we can retain IP, that IP generates revenue, and that revenue goes into the development of new shows.”
Right now the industry is also keen to see the introduction of a “regional uplift”, of 8 per cent, to Section 481, to give productions located outside of Dublin and Wicklow a better chance to compete.
Paul Ryan from Film In Limerick, the regional film office that supports film, television, and digital media production across the midwest, is clear about its value.
“The vast majority of film and TV production in Ireland is in Dublin and Wicklow and that’s something we all, as a country, can celebrate and be proud of. But there is an opportunity to grow it beyond that,” he says.
