Catherine Martin (Dublin Rathdown, Green Party) | Oireachtas source

As I outlined earlier, the repurposing of those savings of €12 million is a result of enormous demand and our determination to ensure the scheme will work and will be accepted by the sector. The savings from the scheme will benefit artists. Among the purposes for which the savings are being applied is the payment of €5 million to the Arts Council, which will offer supports to organisations that received support under strategic funding, arts grant funding or arts centre funding in 2022. The operation of these organisations is a critical support for artists and this funding will mean that resources which would otherwise have been diverted into meeting increased energy costs will now be available to support artists to make work and to present that work to audiences. Further savings will be applied to meet the needs of national cultural institutions to support regional museums and organisations such as Comhaltas Ceoltóirí Éireann which play such an important role in nurturing and promoting our traditional arts.

Subhead B17 refers to live entertainment supports. In 2021, almost €54 million was awarded in grants to support the live entertainment sector as a targeted response to the Covid-19 restrictions which had obvious impact of stopping performers from performing. A further €50 million was provided for the live performance sector in 2022. That funding, along with a suite of measures, was designed to support the recovery of the sector as it fully reopened for live performance. These supports benefit from a specific state aid derogation for measures to deal with the pandemic which ended earlier this year. As with the other pandemic-related supports, these schemes will conclude this year as the crisis period has passed. Support for the arts and culture sector will continue to be provided by the Arts Council, the statutory body responsible for supporting the arts. That funding remains at a record level of €130 million for 2023.

We will continue to engage, as we have done, with a broad range of stakeholders across the arts, culture and live entertainment sectors, including those represented on the live entertainment stakeholder forum, to understand the issues facing the industry. We are committed to continuing engagement with artists.