Joan Burton (Dublin West, Labour) | Oireachtas source

I know the Minister was a novelist in the past. Were Sean O’Casey writing about the likes of the Young Covey today, the characters would be struggling artists because they are the people at the bottom of the heap, struggling on less than the minimum wage. The data are available for the Minister. Artists should not have to look for a minimum wage; they should be looking to have a living wage. The second reason O'Casey would be writing about people still being in tenement style accommodation is that the artists we recently met at the forum our colleague, Deputy Smyth, helped to organise basically cannot look forward to any security with regard to housing. Some artists now spend approximately 80% of a very small income on housing. The Minister has responsibility for culture, heritage and the Gaeltacht. It is sad that we are talking about a social welfare scheme for artists. The Minister should address the issue of artists' employment and not just pass it on to social welfare, which is administered by a different Department for a different purpose.

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