Annie Hoey (Labour) | Oireachtas source

I thank the witnesses for coming in. It is always great to talk about arts and creative spaces and how we can promote that. I have a couple of questions. I reached out through my own arts network of people I know who work or used to work in community arts and for whatever reason have not continued to do so. We all know far too many of those people unfortunately, whether due to Covid-19 pushing them to grown-up jobs because that was how it was, or because they just could not afford to stay in the sector.

We have the fair wages for artists and artists need to be given a fair wage. An artist can never really be paid enough. One of the points raised was that for many places, grant funding has remained static. That unfortunately is a real-time cut because we have inflation. If we have to increase the cost to artists but the grants have remained static, that means making cuts elsewhere in the system. Grants and funding are tied by where that funding comes from. However, are there any further thoughts on how that can be managed? The primary issue has to be paying people a fair wage. Of course, not everyone’s grant stayed still; some people’s grants increased. However, if the grants are not going to manoeuvre around that space to facilitate that, how can that be managed going forward, if funding is going to remain static? Following on from that there is not a person in this sector who does not bemoan the time it takes to fill out grant applications, and I am not looking at anyone in particular in the room. Grant applications are robust and that is good and important. However, they can take a really long time. There are also such matters as PR and promotion. The grant applications cover the in-the-room piece, the creating piece, but there is a whole plethora of stuff that comes around that as well, which often does not fall into being covered in that space.

Recently a friend of mine told me about an application that included an assurance that the grant application time would be covered within that grant. Another friend has told me about other organisations where sometimes, if the grant is big enough, she will get an extra bit of funding for writing that grant application for the organisation she is working with, but that depends and she does not always get it. There are some examples of it but it is not everywhere. How do we deal with that going forward? Unfortunately, the technical or administration stuff, the public relations and promotion, is now part of the creative process, so how do we see that or will it always be seen as the poor relative and part of the work that has to be done and will just have to be squeezed in somehow? If that piece of work cannot be done well, that impacts on the entire creative process.

We talk about creative spaces. I am thinking of the Richmond Road Studios and my colleague, Senator Sherlock, is doing a lot of work with the people there trying to find a space for it. Sample-Studios in Cork was in an old building but the building was razed to the ground and there is nothing on the site yet. I always feel that art spaces are put into unused spaces until a better value comes along, which is always a developer and sometimes the space ends up being turned into a carpark. That is not the fault of anyone here but how we do shift that perception about artist spaces? Some of our best art has been built out of rubble and we create some brilliant art. Sample-Studios was my favourite place to be when I lived in Cork. It was a thriving hub of what was happening and now it is just a hole in the ground, but it will be turned into an hotel or whatever. How do we convince the powers-that-be that we cannot just have art spaces that force artists to make stuff out of something that is just unused, which is pretty much what a lot of those spaces are, and instead move into purpose-built spaces that have longevity? It is really difficult for artists to move and, again, in the case of Sample-Studios, there was massive downsizing and loads of people lost their spaces. Only a few spaces were then made available and they are located at the edge of the city. This is repeated all over the country. How do we move to not just having creative art spaces until a developer comes along and a hotel is seen as a better opportunity? It breaks my heart when I see those spaces being lost to yet another hotel, shopping centre or whatever goes into them.

Someone said to me they think that one of the best things to happen has been the basic income for artists, BIA, scheme because it allows people to drop their side hustles or whatever else people have to do to stay in the arts sector. Obviously, it is not available to everyone and is really only for that professional piece. I am really interested in early years artists, space and how to allow play because I think play brings the best creativity. When we are only looking at a straight professional system or people who are studying it either in college or in youth theatres, there is that in-between place where, unless you are exceptional, and not everyone is exceptional at the start of their career and lots of people are like that, you do not find that space. How do we find the space to support those artists? I have spoken about this at the committee before.