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

This measure is kind of laughable. I cannot see how a €50 reduction in a €110 fee is going to make any difference to anybody. We will support any bit of relief but this seems laughable, which is probably the best word to describe it. What is less than funny, however, is that the Government has totally ignored the requests made by the music and entertainment industry, in particular the performers and artists in music and entertainment, to the Government for some actual, serious support. Appeals were made by the Music and Entertainment Association of Ireland, which is supported by a cross-party group of Deputies, including Deputies from Fianna Fáil and Fine Gael. I find it remarkable that the Government has totally ignored those appeals in the budget.

Given that it is budget day, while there has been great fanfare about increased expenditure, which we debated earlier, the Department of Tourism, Culture, Arts, Gaeltacht, Sport and Media has seen an 8% cut in expenditure. As an aside, it is interesting that the Green Party seems to have been completely shafted in the budget. The Departments held by its Ministers, Deputies Eamon Ryan and Catherine Martin, got cuts of 17% and 8%, respectively.

While there has been increased expenditure in some programme lines in the Estimates book, the music and entertainment industry, whose representatives gave a presentation to the joint committee a week ago detailing the sector's asks in its pre-budget submission, was totally ignored. The organisers of the all-party committee, including other Deputies, texted me today to say how gutted and disappointed they were. That is a pretty poor show.

If we did not know it beforehand, during Covid we learned just how much we missed the musicians, performers and entertainers who work in bars and ordinary jobbing musicians. When we did not have all of those events to go to, there was a lot of talk about finally recognising these people and how important they are to society because most of them are on very low and precarious incomes. We were going to learn the lessons of the pandemic, realise how valuable they are and give them additional support but we have not done that in the budget. In fact, the Department that would be responsible for doing so has seen an 8% cut. That is a pretty poor show. Against that background, this measure is a bit laughable. What difference will €475,000 or €50 a pop make to anyone?

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