Ms Jessica Traynor:

A chairde, SAOI thanks the committee for the opportunity to speak and we welcome this step towards addressing the issues of safety in the arts. Founded in 2020, SAOI is an umbrella group of activists representing artists and arts workers across multiple sectors of the Irish arts, including poetry, fiction, publishing, comedy, theatre and music, among others. While the settings of our workplaces may vary, we have found unfortunate commonalities in the patterns of abuse, harassment, and bullying that are experienced in the course of our work as artists. Together, we are seeking meaningful, committed and measurable change to make the working lives of artists safe and equitable.

Recent events in Irish society around femicide and violence towards women and minorities have provided yet another wake-up call that there is something rotten in our society. Every few years it seems, the women and minority groups of Ireland must sit quietly while society at large wrings its hands and asks how these terrible events could have occurred. The answer is systemic issues around power and misogyny which are rife all across our society. The arts world is no different.

Since forming SAOI, we have twice met the Arts Council to discuss funding and accountability of publicly-funded arts bodies, and we have requested meetings with the Minister, Deputy Catherine Martin. An open letter to the Arts Council and the Minister highlighting the need for a safer working environment has been signed by over 300 artists under our earlier organisational name, Wake Up Irish Poetry. In our meetings with organisations and individuals the message has been that the issue is not one that Government or funding bodies can solve. We have been told it is the role of individuals to police their own behaviour and that the inherent power imbalances within the arts world are somehow naturally occurring and cannot be addressed. We have been told that if a crime has occurred, the Garda should be involved. When we propose prevention, we are told that crisis management is enough.

I would like the committee to imagine these arguments being made in the area of child protection policy, an area which is currently, rightly, addressed and safeguarded by policy in arts funding. Indeed, I ask members to imagine it in the area of financial governance. In other workplaces, if a person feels that inappropriate sexual advances have been made, or if someone is being harassed or discriminated against, there is a HR system in place through which complaints can be made. No such structures exist for freelancers in the Irish arts world. Existing complaints channels often call for the complainant to address the perpetrator directly. In other cases, perpetrators may either be on a board of management or have hand-picked the board of management to whom complaints are directed. There is no neutral body to which individuals can complain, and no transparent system for recording and following up on complaints made.

It is unacceptable for arts workers to have no course for redress against often powerfully resourced individuals and organisations. When individuals make complaints, they run the risk of losing work, wider blacklisting, and in some cases, allegations of defamation and risk of lawsuit.

We are calling for action to be taken by the Department of Tourism, Culture, Arts, Gaeltacht, Sport and Media, the Department of Justice, and other relevant Government bodies to address this situation, and to create a new independent body to which complaints can be made by both non-contracted and contracted workers and artists. This request does not appear to be covered in the announcement by the Minister, Deputy Catherine Martin, of a suite of actions subsequent to the Speak Up: A Call for Change report. To reiterate what our colleagues in Fair Plé have already raised in their meeting with the Oireachtas committee, measures need to be long term, sustainable and fully funded.

Our requests are simple. They have been implemented in other areas of public life. The roadmap is in place. This committee and the Government need to take a leap of imagination to consider the safety of women and minorities in the arts as being as important as the safety of the population at large.