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

The Government needs to get clear information out to people whose incomes and employment are impacted as we head into Christmas. I do not know how many times in the past two years I have raised the issue of the plight of musicians and entertainers. They are in a dire state at the moment because the public health measures and restrictions and the voluntary decisions of many people to scale back their social outings and social activities mean that the work of musicians and entertainers has collapsed. Some of the venues are getting money and so on but the work of jobbing musicians, of whom there are thousands, has collapsed. These are people who have been hit again and again and again. They have had to fight all the way along to get little crumbs of support in terms of the music and entertainment business assistance scheme and the other Covid support scheme, but both of those funds are now depleted and apparently will not be reviewed until January. As we head into Christmas, some of these people are not able to get the full PUP. They are on lower payments and jobseeker's payments and so on. There is no fairness or consistency and their incomes are hammered. Some of them are now experiencing banks moving against them in terms of their homes. They wrote to the Minister, Deputy Catherine Martin, on 22 November, asking for an urgent meeting which she has not given them. A cross-party group that meets with entertainers met yesterday. They are seriously worried about the situation facing musicians and entertainers. I plead with the Taoiseach to make it easy for them to get the PUP, to reactivate the support funds and to ask the Minister, Deputy Catherine Martin, to meet as a matter of urgency with representatives of musicians and entertainers before Christmas.

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