Ruth Coppinger (Dublin West, Socialist Party) | Oireachtas source

It is a common myth that people interested in a career in the arts, such as young people fresh from college, are going on arts internships. That is no longer the case.

It is an open secret in the arts fraternity that free labour is being used to displace people in full-time labour. A quote in the Irish Journal of Arts Management and Cultural Policystates: "The reality is that the replacement and displacement of paid jobs by interns does happen". Another quote inVisual Artists Irelandstates that "Unpaid internships are becoming more common for a new generation of arts workers". They prop up the sector and they falsify a situation that may or may not be sustainable in the face of reduced public spending.

The reality is that people are doing repeat internships. There are people in their 30s who have been on three JobBridge programmes or three internships in the arts sector. It is not that they are gaining experience. There are no jobs there for them.

We did a survey of three websites and we found 52 jobs advertised, 36 of which were internships, 19 were JobBridge, eight were CE schemes, seven were unpaid internships and two were unpaid JobBridge programmes. That seems to be proof that it is predominant.

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