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The An Bord Snip Nua, a group commissioned to find ways of cutting public service cuts by the Irish Government, recommended scrapping The Irish Film Board in a report published on 16^th July 2009.   It also recommended transferring the duties and services undertaken by the IFB to a new enterprise agency.

 In a section on achievable structural reforms and efficiencies within the Arts department, the report claimed that savings of €23 million (£19.8 million) could be realised if the IFB was discontinued and its staff made redundant.

 The report said: ‘The Group considers that continued funding of the Irish Film Board is not affordable at this time in the context of other more pressing spending priorities.

‘Given the scale of tax expenditure €418 million (£360 million) since 1993 and €33 million (£28.4 million) in 2008 via the tax incentive scheme for this sector, and given the level of international competition in this market space, there is no objective economic case for subventing the Irish Film Industry.’

 ‘The Group considers that film development is similar to enterprise development activities in other sectors (e.g. manufacturing, services, tourism etc). It concludes that the enterprise promotion and development activities of the Irish Film Board should be transferred to the new enterprise agency.’

 The IFB remained tight-lipped about the recommendations while it waited for Simon Perry, its CEO, to formulate a response.

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