Duncan Smith (Dublin Fingal, Labour) | Oireachtas source

I acknowledge and thank Deputy Boyd Barrett for pushing for this debate at the Business Committee and for the focus to be on the arts, which is vitally important. I cannot sing, dance or act and I could not draw a straight line with a ruler but I am lucky to have people in my family who are involved in the arts and make their primary living from being singers in bands, sound engineers, music producers or event managers, so I have seen at first hand how precarious and challenging that work can be in good times and especially now in these most uncertain times.

The Covid-19 crisis has created significant challenges for the arts and culture sector. That has been touched on already by most of the speakers in the debate thus far. We have mentioned the survey from the Arts Council of almost 300 arts organisations across the country where it is estimated that organisations will lose €2.9 million per month as a result of the shutdown. The economic impact to date is in or around €10 million. Those are rough estimates. We cannot calculate the true value yet and we may not be able to do so for a long time. By the end of April, 12,000 events throughout the country had been cancelled and 19,000 days of paid work have gone. That is just paid work that we can quantify, not the amount of work we cannot quantify that goes into preparing for events. The overall impact of that on the country's 23,000 artists and arts workers is still unknown but one figure that leaped out at me was an estimate that up to €2.5 million of artists' own money that has been pre-invested in projects is already gone. That highlights a number of issues regarding this sphere. We do not see the financial sacrifice that artists make for their own craft and the amount of money and effort they have to front-load to put on a show or a concert. That is gone. They will not get that back. That is something that highlights the precariousness of their livelihood.

Many artists and those who work directly in the arts industry are in receipt of the working family payment. Some of them have to use Department of Employment Affairs and Social Protection payments in normal times. That hammers home how worrying this crisis is for them. It has been mentioned here already that the arts will be the last sector to come back. Imagine being an artist now and hearing that from politicians, the Chief Medical Officer and everybody else. They are saying what they believe, that the arts sector will be the last to come back. Artists will be wondering if they will come back at all. We have to provide confidence in this House, both in government and across the House, that they will come back and that we will be there to support them every step of the way.

We understand that in this time, the front-line workers and front-loading resources to them is important but the Government must now acknowledge that sectors such as arts require reassurance and security to keep them and their sector from financial ruin, about which I am sure many of them are worried.

I am sure that when all of us in this House, including the Minister, look into the distant future at the new normal we are all expecting but are not quite sure what it looks like, we imagine ourselves going to the cinema, the theatre, a museum, an art gallery, a comedy show, a pantomime or a battle of the bands. We have to make sure that is there for us.

My party colleague, Senator Hoey, brought to my attention indirectly through a tweet a quote from the late Eavan Boland, who once said, "It's dreadful to think of a society that doesn't sustain the artist". It is an apt quote and it is something we should all think about at this time as we go through this crisis. I take this opportunity to acknowledge Eavan Boland, who passed away on 27 April. I had the pleasure of being introduced to her poetry when studying for my leaving certificate nearly 20 years ago. In poems like "The War Horse", she was the very first poet who wrote about a world that I physically recognised and could connect to. Her work helped open up the world of poetry. An art that I, as a 17 year old boy, once thought was perhaps esoteric or unimportant suddenly became both vital and beautiful and carried a real power. She has left an artistic legacy that will endure for generations to come and her loss will be keenly felt for a long time. She was correct in how she viewed the importance of the arts. In this time of isolation, we still seek and strive for that. We only have to look at the impact of the television show, "Normal People", which Deputy Niamh Smyth mentioned also. It has become a wonderful treat and escape at this time. It is a collection of wonderful mainly Irish actors and is stunningly shot. It is based on a source novel by one of Ireland's truly great writers, Sally Rooney. "Normal People" reminds us, through the medium of television in this instance, just how vital our wider arts sector is and that our artists contribute across a wide range of areas on a 365-days-a-year basis. Their absence from work at this time has perilous consequences.

Artists and arts workers not only desire to get back to work for their own livelihood but seek to provide a necessary and welcome distraction from these very trying times for all of us. Artists are keen to memorialise the friends and neighbours we have all lost and who have suffered through Covid-19.

They want to celebrate our heroes on the front lines and those supporting our front-line workers. They want to tell the story of the Covid-19 era. We know they will; we just need to ensure there are enough supports and an industry in place to allow them to do that.

Following an online meeting of almost 400 artists and art workers, the National Campaign for the Arts has outlined the particular challenges it has collectively identified for the sector. It is offering some potential solutions in the short, medium and long terms to ensure Ireland's arts and cultural industries can remain strong and viable. I ask the Minister to take these solutions on board and provide a strong response to all of them, though she will not have time to do so during this debate. We need to establish a stabilisation fund for arts and cultural organisations in order that the sector can survive. We need an immediate commitment of an additional €20 million for the Arts Council for 2020 alone to support artists, art workers and art organisations to survive and recover. This should include considerable increases to project awards and bursaries, which have a significant impact for artists and art workers.

We need to ensure clarity and openness when engaging with the sector. That is vitally important. We need to support artists via the pandemic unemployment payment. While many artists are getting it, a number are falling through the gaps. That may be happening as, although they may not have been working at the particular time, they had work lined up later on in the month that did not come to fruition. We need some latitude from the Department of Employment Affairs and Social Protection on that. When the next Government is formed, we need to ensure a full Ministry for culture, heritage and the Gaeltacht is retained, and the Minister must ensure artists are part of her advisory team. The rules of the Covid payment have been a little too strict for some artists. We need to get the message to our Intreo offices and push the Minister for Employment Affairs and Social Protection in order that artists who are unable to ply their trade can avail of the pandemic unemployment payment.

We mentioned what other countries are doing at the moment and other examples. Germany and the United Kingdom are on a different scale in terms of population and the size of their economies. However, Wales, which is similar to us, has also been mentioned and Scotland, which we can have some kind of comparison with, has introduced supports amounting to €12.5 million. Compared to our €1 million it is almost embarrassing. This needs urgent attention from the Minister and her Department.

James Connolly, whose execution we remember this week, said: "The Irish people will only be free, when they own everything from the plough to the stars". The arts sector is home to both the worker and the star, and we must show them we fundamentally value them and ensure the sector which provides so much joy and entertainment to our society reaps the benefits of the profits it makes. We must not only reopen the sector in time, but ensure those working in it do not return to their previous uncertainty, working on uncertain contracts or if-and-when contracts, and not getting the hours or pay they deserve.

I also draw the Minister's attention to the fact that not only do our artists and those working in the sector contribute amazing creative output to our society, but they are often at the vanguard and forefront of bringing political causes to the attention of the wider public, something we as politicians are not always able to do to the same effect. For example, over 240 Irish and international artists came together yesterday to back Amnesty International's campaign calling for a military embargo on Israel until it fully complies with its obligations under international law and urging an end to Israel's siege of Gaza amid the Covid-19 pandemic. That is a popular cause among the Irish public and many in this House. This is an example of the very necessary contribution from those in the arts industry and what they do on top of the creative output they provide for us on an ongoing basis.

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