Ms Angela Dorgan:

I agree with the Deputy as to what she is experiencing in Mullingar. I also think there is something in the water there with all of the musical talent that is up there. This is very much replicated around the Twenty-six Counties. Our experience is that funded art centres become pinnacles and centres of other arts activities such as creative schools. We have all referred to the intelligence and innovation in our sector and much community and participatory arts practice has come online. The experience is not the same but the sector has reacted really quickly to its audiences, whether that is young or old choirs, those centres have reacted rapidly as have the artists who work on those.

Our fear is that if those centres, individuals and artists in residence are not funded to exist, anything that is available now will also evaporate because one will see those people having to move into other sectors because there is no work.

The other challenge for the arts sector is that we are seen as being so robust and well able to get on with things, that there might be a laziness in not hearing us and appreciating that this is a very important time to fund this sector. At present, we cannot be left on our own to do it anyway. The entire rug upon which we are able to sustain ourselves, which is public performance, has been pulled from under us.

On numbers, the Arts Council, in its initial survey gathered for the first three months of Covid-19, found that 12,000 events and activities were cancelled per month around the country. This echoes those numbers the Deputy talked about in Mullingar, Westmeath and Longford. That figure for activity will also evaporate unless those centres, local arts activities and local arts funding are maintained and sustained and unless those artists can be given the opportunity to come off the PUP and to engage in full-time work again, albeit delivering that work online for the time being.