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

Even if there is a lifting of restrictions, one sector which is not going to see any significant recovery in its ability to earn an income involves people in music and many of the performing arts. The Taoiseach may have heard a controversy breaking out regarding the 1,400 applicants for the music industry stimulus package. Of those 1,400 applicants, some 83% were refused. That was insulting and demoralising for those musicians who applied for the package, many of whom are household names. That does not really matter, because they all deserve support since their industry has been, and will remain for the foreseeable future, decimated as a result of the pandemic. Only a miserable €876,000 was put into that scheme, so right from the outset the majority of musicians were going to be excluded from it. That is in addition to the fact that most musicians, artists, performers and SMEs involved in that industry have been excluded from the Covid restrictions support scheme, CRSS. Is the Taoiseach going to do something to give real support to the artists, musicians, light and sound engineers, etc., whose livelihoods have been utterly decimated? The supports given have simply not been enough.

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