Patrick O'Donovan (Limerick County, Fine Gael)
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That is the reason I extended it. I did not want to have them cut off at the end of August and left without any sort of an income. I also did not want to cut it short on 31 December. That would be a real message of "Happy Christmas lads, we are cutting you off now". We are going to resource the first two months out of the Department's own resources next year. We have no money for it but we are going to try to get it. As I said to Deputy Gibney a while ago, once I get the money - presuming I will get something - I am open to suggestions as to how it should be designed and what Deputies feel are good learnings from the previous iteration. The previous iteration was not perfect but it was certainly a far better situation than what the artists had prior to then, which was that they did not know from Monday to Friday where their income was going to come from.