Richard Boyd Barrett (Dún Laoghaire, People Before Profit Alliance) | Oireachtas source

I move amendment No 1:

1. (a) To insert the following after “accepts that”:

“— artistic endeavour and creativity define what it is to be human;”

(b) To insert the following after “advancement of the Irish people”:

“and humanity in general”

(c) To delete the words:

“— ensuring a stable, sustainable and secure funding model for the arts with progressive increases in State expenditure in line with improvements in the economy and the public finances;”

and replace with:

“— increasing State funding of the arts to the European average of 0.6 per cent of gross domestic product, GDP; and adding an additional €75 million in funding to the arts in budget 2017;

— removing the ‘availability for work’ requirement for registered artists on jobseeker's allowance to allow artists to do unpaid work;”

(d) To insert the following after “increasing music provision in primary schools”:

“— ensuring all children have greater access to culture and art as a right, both within and outside education;

— establishing a new fund targeted at promoting access to arts in participation in disadvantaged areas for adults and children;

— opening up existing facilities such as schools and colleges for after-school artistic activities for children and teenagers and opening up the National Asset Management Agency’s, (NAMA, buildings for use by local arts organisations;” and

(e) To insert the following after “calls for”:

“— the establishment of a ‘new deal’ jobs programme to deliver at least 5,000 new jobs in the public sector for artists, offering an opportunity for artists to contribute their skills and creativity to society in areas such as education, special needs, disability, mental health and disadvantaged communities and for the elderly;"

I thank Fianna Fáil for tabling a motion on the arts. We support the general thrust of its motion but PBP-AAA has submitted an amendment which I hope the proposers of the motion will accept. I will run through it briefly in the short period of time available to me. In addition to the measures proposed in the Fianna Fáil motion, we are proposing to increase State funding to the arts to the European average of 0.6%, starting with an additional €75 million in funding in the arts budget in 2017. We propose to remove the availability for work requirement for registered artists on jobseeker's allowance to allow artists, who want to, to do unpaid work. Further, we propose to ensure that all children have greater access to culture and art as a right both within and outside education, to establish a new fund targeted at promoting access to arts participation in disadvantaged areas for adults and children, to open up existing facilities in schools and colleges for after-school artistic activities for children and teenagers, to open up NAMA's buildings for use by local arts organisations and, finally, to establish what we are calling a "new deal" jobs programme to deliver 5,000 new jobs directly in the public sector for artists in the areas of education, special needs, disability, mental health, disadvantaged communities and the elderly.

I will explain the rationale. It is very easy for people of all colours on the political spectrum to utter pious words about their commitment to arts and to stand in photographs at artistic events but then not to match rhetoric with real support and funding for the arts and artists. This has been fact, in particular under the impact of the recession of the past eight or nine years. During this time both the Fianna Fáil-Green Government and the Labour Party-Fine Gael Government slashed arts funding and supports to artists. Since 2008 to date, they have slashed arts funding progressively between them by 30%, further immiserating artists who are already low paid and hitting at the access of children and those in disadvantaged communities to the arts. We do not need pious words but real and concrete action.

I will quote a few artists. The sculptor and artist, Henry Moore, said: "To be an artist is to believe in life." Picasso said: "Every child is an artist. The problem is how to remain an artist once he grows up." Karl Marx said: "The writer must earn money in order to live and write but he must by no means live and write for the purpose of making money." The thing that bothers me is that even when a case is made for the arts, it often has to be justified in economic terms. I do not believe this should be the case. We need to recognise that art is what defines us as human beings. It is our ability to imagine things that are not there and then to go out and create them that is the very defining characteristic of our humanity. Therefore, to deny access to the arts to children and all sections of our society, in particular the poor, the disenfranchised, the elderly and the disabled, is to deny them the right to be human beings. We have never fully recognised or acknowledged that fact. We have never matched the pious words about support for the arts with the real resources that would make that sort of thing a reality, support the arts and infuse the whole of our culture with the influence of the arts.

We need to move beyond rhetoric and come up with the money. Stop the cuts and stop the arts being the soft touch whenever things get difficult. We should recognise that art is what we are as human beings and what people are entitled to, but consistently denied access to. I commend our amendment to the House. It tries to match the rhetoric we hear to what is required to make it fact.

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