Gary Gannon (Dublin Central, Social Democrats) | Oireachtas source

As Ireland emerges from this crisis, we are going to need our arts community more than ever. When the time comes that we can gather in groups with our friends or families it will be our artists, through their music, drama and artistic content, that will be the focal point of that much needed and much longed-for gathering. We are going to rely on our artists to help us laugh again. Undoubtedly, when the time comes that we can honour and pay homage to our front-line workers and those who have served us during this time of great need, such as retail staff, cleaners, nurses and doctors, it will be our artists who will help us fulfil that function. Most importantly, it will be our artists who will help us grieve.

Artists will help us find the manner in which to find expression for grief - grief for those we have lost or the lost time away from those we long to hold. Our artists will meet this challenge. We know this because they always have. For every occasion where difficulty has befallen this country, our artists have been there to help formulate our understanding of what is happening. Through the economic dreariness of the 1980s and early 1990s, it was the artists who brought life to the voids, quite literally in some sense. It was the artists who enlivened those spaces. They brought music. In my constituency, I am thinking about the SFX Theatre and Temple Theatre. It was the artists during those dreary times who gave a generation of Irish people a reason to stay here when no other reason really existed. Through the decadence of the Celtic tiger, it was our artists who brought much-needed ridicule to a nation that was getting ahead of itself and the politicians in this Chamber who were getting ahead of themselves. It was the artists who helped us find meaning. When the crash inevitably came and when all else deserted us, it was our artists who propped us up. It was our artists who helped us to find meaning and what it really meant to be Irish in substance rather than in what we had given over to artificial content during the Celtic tiger. When the pandemic hit us, and the pandemic has been a time when so many people stepped forward, it will be our artists who will once again help us find meaning. I am confident in the role the arts will play in the weeks and months to follow because they have done that time and time again. Throughout that process, we have talked about how great our artists are. We have built statues to the exceptional artists, had gatherings to bring people back and used the music of our artists to share meaning and summon people back but when this pandemic struck in March, what this State and Government offered to our artists was 0.11% of our GDP. This is less than half of the European average. We talk about the role our arts play - when you think about what that means in essence - you cannot put our nice words on bread. Our artists have suffered for long enough even though we need them. We constantly need them. They constantly prop us up. That is something we have to change.

My question concerns the process for re-opening. The Minister said that during phase four, galleries can re-open and in phase five, we will see theatres re-open. She said that NPHET has given those guidelines but I think we need something much stronger than that. Does the Minister have guidelines for how this re-opening would happen? I think she told my colleague from Dublin West that Draíocht would have to develop its own guidelines but I do not think that is appropriate. Will there be guidelines regarding physical distancing? I saw one estimate that if the Abbey Theatre was to re-open under social distancing guidelines, it could get 43 people in there. This will not be accessible. What are the guidelines for re-opening and when will we see them?

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