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

I will continue on the same theme. There were many retrograde aspects to the austerity cuts that began in 2008. They were begun by Fianna Fáil when it started to cut the arts budget. It was cut by €30 million. If ever there was a misguided set of cuts it was in this area. The point of our questions and the disappointment expressed by the arts community about this budget is that there is no recognition that we need, at the very minimum, the full restoration of the cuts that were imposed and to move towards a reasonable level of overall arts expenditure.

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