Ms Angela Dorgan:

I will respond to the latter part of the Senator's contribution. As far as we are concerned, we can never go back to a budget of less than €130 million. As the Senator acknowledged, it was death by a thousand cuts in the sector before we the pandemic. The arm's length principle operating in the arts sector means that none of us can decide how the Arts Council spends its money. I am encouraged that the Arts Council advisory group, on which we sat as the precursor to the task force, will look at how it delineates money provided as bursaries to artists and survival grants to organisations. It is important to note the organisations funded by the Arts Council create work and income opportunities for individuals as well. That trickles down but also takes time.

The wider conversation, especially now with people moving back to counties, is to better fund the local authorities. How the Arts Council delineates its money and plans to help the sector survive and thrive is in its plan, which is available for everybody to look at. In terms of what more we can do, reinstating the €350 pandemic unemployment payment rate is the primary goal for events and arts workers, for all individuals. We must remember that the people on whose behalf we are trying to work are individuals whose lived experience is one of daily fear. We are having Zoom calls with 500 people who are experiencing that fear. We feel that and I know members at local level have all felt it as well. We must expedite support for those individual lived experiences because we cannot just live through the pandemic. We must have a life in it. Life cannot stop. It is for the mental health of the nation. That is what the arts will try to do and it behoves us to support the artists first so they continue to work. Many of the responses we received indicated that the €350 pandemic unemployment payment meant that people were not in a panic every day. The PUP is the priority.

The second layer is always the need for more funding. Members will all agree that any investment in the arts is well spent. It also makes sense economically because every euro invested in the arts makes its way back to the Exchequer in VAT, rent, PAYE and all of that. That applies more to the arts than to most other industries. It also makes economic sense to keep the pandemic unemployment payment at €350 because people can then spend it on butter, bread, eggs and rent. They have to survive. If we do not protect our individual lived experience artists, performers and makers, art-making itself will constrict.

The other major fear of the NCFA and the sector in its entirety is that we have no idea how much flight from the arts there will be or if there will be an arts sector after this pandemic if we do not react swiftly to support these individuals.