Dáil debates

Thursday, 14 May 2020

Covid-19 (Culture, Heritage and the Gaeltacht): Statements

 

Photo of Richard Boyd BarrettRichard Boyd Barrett (Dún Laoghaire, People Before Profit Alliance) | Oireachtas source

I will be sharing time with Deputy Paul Murphy.

As the person who asked for it, I thank the Ceann Comhairle and the Business Committee for agreeing to have this debate on the arts. I ask the Minister to imagine at the best of times what it would be like if we had no music, comedy, film, theatre or art.

Imagine going through the past two months if we had none of those things. It is too awful even to contemplate. The United Nations is talking about a mental health crisis. Imagine how bad that crisis would be without our artists, musicians, poets and writers, as well as the crew - I really want to emphasise this - which includes the technicians, drivers and all the other people who make it happen. Life would not be worth living and we all know it. We only have to think for one minute what the past few months would have been like in that scenario. It would not be worth living in those circumstances and that is how important the arts are.

However, the sort of support we give to our arts workers, performers and artists is insulting. It was insulting before the Covid-19 crisis that in a country whose reputation is built on the arts, we spend less than almost anybody else in Europe in supporting arts, the artists and the crew. Then the crisis comes and €1 million is given to support artists. I have in my hand a rejection letter that was sent to an applicant to one of the schemes the Minister is claiming as a success. I will not say the name of the artist who received this rejection letter but the person is a household name. Two thirds of those who applied for this pretty miserable grant were refused and given a grade on the artistic merit of their application. It is utterly insulting. As I said, this particular rejected applicant is a household name who has given service to the State, as have all of these people. They are treated with no respect, except when people want to jump into a camera shot with them to get a bit of credibility or kudos out of the artists' work and creativity. This insulting approach to our artists has to end and we should realise, now more than ever, how important they are.

I have a few specific issues to raise. The Minister should commit to the demand of the National Campaign for the Arts for an additional €20 million in funding for this year and next year - frankly, it should be more - to fund arts and arts organisations. She should offer a commitment that the Covid-19 payment will be given to everybody, not just those who happened to be working on 13 March. Many people in the arts would have been working the following week or the week after, but they are being denied payment. The payment should be guaranteed until we at least get back to a situation where live performances and the arts are back up and running. In fact, if we genuinely want to support them, such a payment should be given out on a permanent basis to our artists, as I have suggested before, by way of some sort of public works programme. As Deputy Gannon said, theatres and people in the music business need clarity about the guidelines for a partial reopening. When or if that partial reopening happens, services are going to be chronically underfunded because the revenue streams just will not be there if social distancing is implemented.

The last point I want to make is on my oft-repeated theme of the film industry. Why are we giving out supports to film producers who have just sacked all their crew? The staff at Ardmore Studios and elsewhere were not put on the wage subsidy by the producers who get €70 million or €80 million a year but do not actually have any employees, apparently, because they do not recognise those employees as such and sacked them as soon as the crisis hit. Do those people have to go on the Covid-19 payment or are they supposed to apply for jobseeker's alliance? It is absolutely outrageous. These producers continue to look for and get supports but when their workers say, "I am your employee", the producers reply, "We do not have any employees". Let us start supporting the workers, the crew and the artists. We should be putting the money into supporting the people who actually make the art and the work happen.

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