Oireachtas Joint and Select Committees

Wednesday, 15 February 2023

Joint Committee on Tourism, Culture, Arts, Sport And Media

Future of the Media Sector: Discussion (Resumed)

Ms Maria Fleming:

If I could add to that, I mentioned earlier that the pre-budget submission by the National Campaign for the Arts included ten points, one of which was space for the arts. As the Deputy raised that point about artists working regionally and as Ms Glennane has pointed out, we are seeing a lot of our members having to leave the big centres such as Cork, Galway and Dublin because it is no longer affordable for them, both in terms of housing - many of our members would be renters and there is not housing - but also in terms of studio space and production space for artists, visual artists, designers and set makers. I would also direct the Deputy towards our pre-budget submission and the point on space. In it, we have addressed looking at temporary use and meanwhile use of spaces and that in building projects, the Government would consider artist spaces and work-live spaces for artists within any new developments or when it is working on reassessing areas. Space for arts and for artists is a huge issue. We will lose out on the opportunities that we have and the fabulous benefits, for example, as we have spoken about, the Oscar nominations. That will not be possible if we do not support the ecosystem for artists in Ireland.

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