Mattie McGrath (Tipperary, Independent) | Oireachtas source

I too will be as brief as I can. The cohort Deputy Boyd Barrett referred to, musicians, are such a vital part of our being and our entertainment and they have been excluded. I refer to the funding administered by the Departments of Tourism, Culture, Arts, Gaeltacht, Sport and Media. Some groups got funding under two or three schemes, but 87% of single acts, double acts and small groups got nothing. They cannot live on the wind. We are not making this up.

I do not like the Minister's attitude that we come in here and we have the privilege of meeting groups outside the gate. We live in the communities. We get down and dirty with the people. Maybe it is because the Minister lives in Dublin 4, Dublin 3 or whatever part of Dublin that he does not know what the people in rural Ireland think. The people of rural Ireland are proud of their heritage and of their culture and they want to work. They do not want handouts and payouts and Ireland ending at the M50. They are proud of what they have. I will not take lectures from the Minister again today, as I did last night, that we are trying to have fun.

The Minister has had since March. I acknowledged at the outset that the scheme was rushed. We had to put a provision in place hurriedly but eight months later, we have not adapted or adjusted it. We do not have the right people on the National Public Health Emergency Team, NPHET, to embrace the whole nation - the musicians, the actors and all the self-employed - and to have an understanding of those people and, above all, their mental health. It is shocking the damage to mental health. Some people live for those shows and the lift they give them. They look forward from one week to the next to the social dancing outlets and they travel miles to them. That is their life, and they love it.

We will not have an industry. These artists cannot go off digging spuds or coal or cutting turf anymore - it is all gone as well. We want them to entertain. We want Comhaltas to flourish under the ardstiúrthóir, an t-iar-Sheanadóir Labhrás Ó Murchú, agus a bhean chéile, Úna. The Ceann Comhairle was in Caiseal na Mumhan in Brú Ború. What wonderful culture. The music, the dance, the song and the skills would sell Ireland alone without any of us opening our mouths or any schemes or anything else.

We are looking after the people who have been left behind, and after facing nine months to Christmas without a penny, they need support and they need to be allowed to live.

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