Aengus Ó Snodaigh (Dublin South Central, Sinn Fein) | Oireachtas source

I keep standing up to ask questions, forgetting that we are in committee. I welcome the presentations that we have heard. We also heard presentations on Tuesday from organisations in the arts sector, some of which are in receipt of State funding while others have never relied on such funding. They made a number of welcome suggestions.

I acknowledge the work of the Department and the Arts Council in trying to ensure that at least some of the funding that was to be available for the arts during this year was redirected in an imaginative way to try to tackle the effects of the pandemic. As our guests today mentioned, there have been a number of spectacular innovations, given the restrictions that have applied. There have been artistic and musical performances online and I congratulate all of those who have managed to reach their audiences and develop new ones. I enjoyed a lot of what has been put on in recent weeks. I managed to sit and listen to my brothers' band for longer than I normally tend to focus. However, that is not the solution for all artists and musicians. My mother, who is a sculptor, would never take to the Internet in any shape or form. She does not understand it and never bothers with it. My father is a book publisher and the same applies to him.

There is a cohort of artists and those with artistic talent who have not been able to avail of the opportunities of the Internet in this case. It is important to remember them. A lot of young artists have come to the fore and well done to them. I hope they will flourish in future. How do we reach out to those who have suffered as a consequence? I am not saying my father or mother has suffered in any shape or form. They are well and have no issue other than that my father cannot sell his books properly because he cannot have book launches. It is just that this issue is often forgotten about.

I also congratulate the national cultural institutions. Well done to those that have managed to open with changes in the way people view the collections. I hope we will see many more of the private cultural institutions opening around the country. Given that people are still only just straying from their homes, local museums and heritage sites in particular should be visited. We should take the opportunity to encourage people throughout Ireland to avail of the great resources we have. In many other countries, visits to national cultural institutions incur a cost. One thing that stands to us here is that there is no cost incurred in many of them. People can go and see material they would pay a fortune to see in other countries. I have asked before at different committees about funding to try to help local museums and cultural institutions put their collections online. Now that we seem to be coming out of the pandemic slowly, it is especially important that this work does not stop and we ensure more of the collections are online. We heard about the effects on tourism. The tourism sector has always recognised the value of the arts and has used the arts and music to attract people to Ireland. The more we put online, the more that we can attract people.

There are a number of challenges facing the arts sector, the biggest of which is that, given the nature of its audience, it will be the last sector to fully open. Several of the groups before the committee on Tuesday mentioned the changes needed to the pandemic unemployment payment to ensure that it continues for the sector and also that it is flexible enough to allow people in the sector to do a day's work here and there because their work is often precarious. Witnesses from the Event Production Industry Covid-19 Working Group, EPIC, mentioned one change which does not fall under the Department with responsibility for the arts, although it might be possible to lobby the Department of Finance on it. A change in VAT would make it a lot easier for them to be more cost effective or at least more cost attractive when setting up events in the future. Extra distancing means margins will be much tighter.

What is Ms Licken's view on setting up a full task force with all of the stakeholders to keep an eye on the arts sector in the next weeks and months and to ensure that as problems emerge they are addressed and solutions found quickly? That is the key.