Sir, – In the article "Port boss critical of Hollywood-style studio plan" (December 30th), our proposal to bring world-class film, TV and digital content studios to Dublin city, as part of the Poolbeg West Strategic Development Zone (SDZ), is described as "daft".
The fact that film, television and digital content is a global, multibillion euro industry, currently exploding worldwide, is not in dispute. And for that reason, the Government has rightly prioritised the sector in the recently launched Creative Ireland initiative and in its action plan for jobs. Dublin City Council also identifies it as a high-priority goal.
For Ireland to benefit from the phenomenal growth in this sector – in which we are widely acknowledged as being world leaders in terms of our award winning actors, directors, producers and film crew, etc – we need more studio space. This is widely recognised and accepted by some of the most respected Irish and international professionals in the film, TV and digital content industries, many of whom have recently publicly expressed their support for Dublin Bay Studios.
The studios must be located in the Dublin city centre. Some 60 per cent of the cost of production in our industry is labour cost, and it is the availability of skilled crafts people, technicians, and creative talent on the doorstep in the city centre that will make it the success we know it can be. This is the only model that will enable us to compete with – and equal – the top studios in the world, and put us on the map internationally.
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Within the Poolbeg West SDZ, we now have a once in a lifetime opportunity to get this right. The studio would require only 20 of the 84 acres available in the SDZ, and they are designed to not affect any lands identified for the provision of housing.
Our proposals are wholly consistent with the aims and objectives of the SDZ legislation (a mixed-use development of “economic and social importance to the State”).
Studios at this location would not only be a catalyst for a creative cluster where people can live and work side by side, but would also drive the much needed regeneration of Dublin’s inner city and provide employment for local residents in Ringsend and the wider community.
Dublin Bay Studios would be self-financed and would not require state subsidy.
Dublin Port is one of a number of landowners in the SDZ. Its attempts, in the aforementioned article, to trivialise our ambition to create thousands of jobs for Irish workers and creative talent are for its own protective ends and not in the general interest.
The decision does not lie with Dublin Port, however, and we hope that Dublin City Council will see that this is an opportunity that neither it, nor Ireland, can afford to miss. – Yours, etc,
JAMES MORRIS,
Dublin Bay Studios,
Adelaide Road,
Dublin 2.