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

I feel that we will need some physical guidelines from the Department on how theatres can open.

I will move on to artists' payments. We have accepted that €203 in unemployment benefit is not enough for a person to live off. We have already crossed that Rubicon. According to the 2016 census, some 23,000 people make their living from art, including artists and the freelance technicians associated with them. They will be one of the last groups of people to come back to normality and yet there will be an expectation for them to live off €203 when the Covid-19 payment subsides. Could the Minister clarify whether the Government can extend the Covid payment for artists? What is the process by which that can be made that happen? Many artists will not be able to live off €203 a week and others will not be able to apply for the Facebook grant. The fact that the arts bursary was oversubscribed is not because it was so great but because the need was greater. Artists understand what it means to be hungry and they are terrified about what will happen when the payment subsides.

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