Calling Time On 481

Brendan O’Carroll’s third play about his fantastical and fantastically funny female alter-ego, Mrs Brown, is currently drawing to the Olympia Theatre the kind of huge crowds every theatre owner in Ireland would crave. But for O’Carroll himself, part of the real success of this phenomenally popular series of plays is that it has finally given him enough money to finish and release – “probably at Cannes next year” – his movie The Sparrow’s Trap.

But when he spoke to me O’Carroll was clearly less interested in promoting his play than firing a broadside at those who want to keep the Section 481 tax break for film-makers. In fact, he argues – in what is bound to be a highly contentious opinion – that Section 481 as a tax break benefits only producers. (Before I let O’Carroll begin, I must stress that he didn’t avail of any tax breaks to complete The Sparrow’s Trap.)
“The reason I want to talk to hotpress on this is because there is a snowball rolling where everyone seems to be just arguing for Section 481 to be retained,” he says. “I was on the Late Late Show last week and those three actors from Bachelor’s Walk were saying if we lose 481 the industry is fucked. I think that’s completely wrong. In fact, most of our best movies were made before the introduction of 481.”
Surely not a bad idea, Brendan, when the Minister was trying to build up a film industry? Likewise the fact is that Andrea Corr’s latest movie, The Boys From Clare, had to be shot in the Isle of Man, instead of Ireland, because tax incentives here weren’t as good as they are abroad.
“Do you think for one moment that Saving Private Ryan wouldn’t have been made here if we hadn’t had the tax break?” he counters. “It was made here because we had the FCA willing to go in as 1000 extras. And the point about Andrea Corr’s movie is that the tax breaks would have made fuck all difference to the actors, only to the producers. That’s my argument. Actors themselves don’t benefit from this. The government doesn’t say to an actor, ‘if you make this movie, we will give you 80% of your fee tax free’.”
Actors get work, Brendan.
“Fair enough. But let me give my own personal experience on this. I didn’t get a tax break on The Sparrow’s Trap but we got it on The Mammy. But I wasn’t the producer on that, Jim Sheridan and Arthur Lappin were. They would have picked up, of free money – money they don’t have to pay back – about 1.6 million. So it’s not a tax break.
“First of all it has to be risk-money, the money has to be at risk, otherwise you can’t get a tax break on it. Yet it’s not at risk. Because they won’t allow the producers to raise the money, you have to raise it through a broker. The broker won’t give you the money. What he gives is the taxable amount, and they hang onto the rest so they can pay back the investor their 75%.
“So you just get that amount of money taken off your annual tax bill over the next three years. So who benefits? The producers. That money doesn’t go back into the movie industry, as such. That’s my argument.”
Likewise, Brendan argues that “mostly, therefore, the people who are making this money from the movies don’t care about movies as such, they only care about getting those tax breaks.” No doubt, directors and producers such as Sheridan and Lappin would disagree.
So what does O’Carroll say to those who are suggesting that 481 should not be totally scrapped, but replaced by a similar incentive that safeguards against scenarios where American producrs pocket the bulk of the profits from Irish-made movies.
“I think there should be no specific tax exemption, except maybe a loan system for productions that are made over here,” he concludes.
“In that case, if the film does make money the government get it straight back. But overall, I have to say I’d much prefer if 481 was scrapped.”