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

I talked to people who signed the letter as well as to people who were asked to sign it and made the decision not to sign it. As we can see, there is quite a polarised debate on both sides of this question. To some extent, it is up to the theatre and arts community to sort this out themselves. There has to be a balance between making the national theatre a space for all the people, all the theatre community and all the different theatre companies while at the same time guaranteeing decent terms and conditions of employment and some sort of security for actors and theatre workers generally.

That is what I want to focus on in my question. Will the Minister accept that what is really at the bottom of this situation is that workers in the arts, whether actors, performers or film workers, whose concerns I have raised with the Minister incessantly for the last year, have no security at all? They have no security of employment, no security of income and no security of career path. That is the problem. We take them for granted. We wheel out these workers in the arts for the celebrations of the centenary of the Dáil but we do not care that they are living in poverty and have no security of employment.

It is possible to work in the film industry or the arts sector for 20 or 30 years and not know whether there will be a job next week and an income or if it will be possible to pay the rent or get a mortgage. That is the problem.

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