Niamh Smyth (Cavan-Monaghan, Fianna Fail) | Oireachtas source

I appreciate what the Minister stated about the investment and the money spent on theatre. Nevertheless, I am sure that she, too, read The Irish Times article by Peter Crawley at the weekend, in which he wrote about a crisis in the theatre world and dwindling opportunities for artists, who are being squeezed out of the frame by disappearing venues, rising rents and faltering subsidies. In March 2019, Theatre Upstairs, a venue committed exclusively to new work, announced its closure after nine years, while at the end of November, the Collapsing Horse theatre company announced it was calling it a day, another great loss to Irish theatre. In announcing its closure, Theatre Upstairs succinctly highlighted the importance of protecting theatre. It stated:

It is unquantifiable to know what Irish Theatre would look like now without this seedbed for rising artists... More artistic seedbeds need to exist in Ireland and they need to be supported. Failure has to be allowed if success is to be achieved and it is not for audiences to tell us what they want to see, it is for us to create something that they can’t even imagine.

The point is that we are losing our venues for new work.

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